What is AI phone screening?
AI phone screening is a first screening call made by an AI voice agent instead of a recruiter. Haira calls the candidate's own phone, confirms it is speaking to the right person, and asks the questions a recruiter asks first: experience, why they are looking, location and work mode, notice period and pay. The answers are saved as fields, and each call ends with a strong, maybe or weak fit and the reason.
How a call goes
The agent first checks it has the right person, and only a clear yes counts. If the candidate is busy, it offers to call back at a time they choose. If they are free, it checks they are still interested, asks the screening topics one question at a time, and closes the call.
Before the call, the candidate gets an email saying when Haira will call, that the call takes up to five minutes, and that it is recorded and transcribed.
What you get after the call
Notice period, current and expected pay, city and experience are saved on the candidate as fields you can sort and filter. A question the candidate did not answer stays empty instead of being guessed, and answers that contradict each other are shown as conflicting answers.
A separate review step reads the call against the job's real work mode, notice period and pay range and sets the fit: strong, maybe or weak, always with a reason. Candidates who pass can move on to the AI video interview.
When calls are made
Calls Haira starts by itself, such as the first call, retries and callbacks, are placed inside your organization's calling hours, 09:00 to 19:00 Monday to Friday by default, in the job's time zone. A recruiter can also press Call Candidate Now to dial at once.
If nobody answers, Haira tries again, up to three attempts per round by default. If a call drops halfway, it calls back and asks only the topics that were left.
Where this stops
A phone screen checks the basics of a first call. It does not test skills in depth, which is what the AI video interview is for. Haira only calls numbers that are valid for the job's country and only while the job is active, and a candidate who does not answer after the retries is left for a recruiter to follow up.
How does the AI phone screen work?
Haira calls the candidate's phone: a real call, with no link, app or computer needed. It asks what a recruiter asks on a first call: current role and experience, why they are looking, location and work mode, notice period, and current and expected pay. The answers are saved on the candidate as fields you can sort and filter, and a question the candidate didn't answer is left empty rather than guessed. Each call ends with a strong, maybe or weak fit, and the reason for any mismatch. You choose who gets a call, by hand or with Auto-Process.
Last checked against Haira's own implementation on 2026-11-05.