How to Shortlist Candidates with Claude
You'll finish with a ranked shortlist and a one-paragraph summary per candidate — even if you have 40 CVs, no ATS, and no time to read them all properly. Define your criteria, run one prompt, review the output. That's the whole thing.
TL;DR
- You'll have a structured assessment of every CV in minutes — even if applications arrived in five different formats.
- Free plan works fine for up to 15 CVs per session; batch larger piles across two or three runs.
- Claude applies your criteria consistently. You decide who actually gets through.
- What used to take three hours of back-and-forth reading takes 20 minutes, including your own review.
Before you start
- A Claude.ai account — the free plan handles a full screening session without issue. Use Pro if you're processing 30+ CVs back to back.
- The CVs themselves in any format — PDF, Word, email body, LinkedIn export. Copy the text out; you don't need them formatted consistently.
- A clear job description or at minimum a list of the three or four things this hire actually needs to be able to do. Without this, your criteria will be vague and the screening will be vague too.
- Five minutes to write your criteria down before you start — this is the step most people skip, and it's the one that matters most. See Step 1.
How to do it — step by step
Define your criteria before opening Claude
Spend an extra minute writing down your three non-negotiable requirements — the things a candidate must demonstrate to be considered at all — before you do anything else. Not "good communicator" or "team player", but things you can actually verify from a CV: "three or more years running paid social campaigns", "previously hired or managed a small team", "demonstrable experience with B2B sales cycles of six months or longer". Then list two to four desirable criteria that would move someone up the shortlist. The reason to do this now, not inside Claude, is simple: once you're reading CVs, your criteria drift based on what you see. Writing them first locks in what you actually need. One more thing: frame criteria around skills, experience, and demonstrated outcomes rather than personal characteristics. Beyond being the right thing to do, it also produces a more useful screening — Claude can assess "five years of client-facing account management" from a CV; it can't meaningfully assess "cultural fit". If you want a template to work from, the HR Prompt Builder has a criteria-setting prompt that walks you through this in under three minutes.
Prepare your CVs for Claude
Don't worry if the applications arrived in different formats — copy the text from each one and paste it into a single document, with a clear label before each: "CV 1:", "CV 2:", and so on. Skip reformatting; raw copied text is fine. If you want to reduce the chance that names, universities, or addresses subtly influence the assessment, replace identifying details with neutral labels before pasting: "Candidate A", "Candidate B". The screening result will be identical, and you'll be applying your criteria more cleanly.
Run the shortlisting prompt
Now open Claude and paste the prompt below — fill in your job title, your non-negotiable criteria, and your desirable criteria, then paste the CV text underneath. Hit send. Claude will read each CV against the exact criteria you gave it and return a structured assessment for every candidate: which requirements they meet, which they don't, and an overall tier (Strong / Possible / Unlikely). For a batch of 10 to 15 CVs, you'll have a first-pass ranking in under two minutes. Even if you have 40 CVs and no time to read them all, split them into three batches and run the same prompt each time — the criteria stay consistent because they're in the prompt, not in your head.
Review the output and apply your own judgment
At this point, treat Claude's assessments as a structured starting point, not a final answer. Claude can tell you how well each CV matches the criteria you gave it. It cannot tell you that a candidate who spent two years freelancing after redundancy is actually a stronger hire than their CV suggests, or that the person with the most impressive job titles wrote the most evasive covering letter you've ever read. Go through the Strong and Possible tiers yourself before deciding who moves forward. Claude is not a replacement for human judgment in hiring decisions — it's a tool for applying your criteria consistently at scale, so the judgment you do exercise is better informed and less exhausting.
Document your shortlist
Before moving on, ask Claude to write a one-paragraph summary per shortlisted candidate — what they bring, what's missing, and one thing worth exploring at interview. Save this alongside your shortlist. You now have a record of how you made the call.
The prompt
You are helping me screen CVs and build a shortlist for a hiring decision. Role I'm hiring for: [Job title — e.g. Marketing Manager, Operations Coordinator] Non-negotiable criteria (must meet all of these to be considered): 1. [e.g. At least 3 years in a B2B sales role] 2. [e.g. Experience managing a team of two or more people] 3. [e.g. Hands-on experience with CRM tools, e.g. Salesforce or HubSpot] Desirable criteria (would strengthen a candidate's case): 1. [e.g. Experience in SaaS or tech sector] 2. [e.g. Track record of hitting or exceeding revenue targets] 3. [e.g. Experience hiring or onboarding team members] For each CV below, do the following: - List which non-negotiable criteria the candidate meets and which they don't — based only on what's in their CV. - Note which desirable criteria they meet. - Assign a tier: Strong (meets all non-negotiables plus two or more desirables), Possible (meets all non-negotiables, few or no desirables), or Unlikely (missing one or more non-negotiables). - Write one sentence noting anything worth clarifying or probing if this candidate moves forward. Base your assessment only on the CV text provided. Do not infer or assume experience that isn't stated. If a criterion cannot be assessed from the CV, say so rather than guessing. CVs to screen: [Paste CV text here — separate each with a clear label: "CV 1:", "CV 2:", etc.]
What the output looks like
Candidate: CV 1
Non-negotiable criteria:
✓ B2B sales experience — 4 years in an enterprise software sales role, stated explicitly.
✓ Team management — managed a team of three SDRs for 18 months at current employer.
✗ CRM tools — no specific CRM mentioned anywhere in the CV. Worth asking.
Desirable criteria:
✓ SaaS sector — current and previous roles both in SaaS.
✓ Revenue targets — CV states "exceeded Q3 target by 22%"; no other figures given.
✗ Hiring experience — not mentioned.
Tier: Possible — Meets all non-negotiables except CRM, which is unclear rather than absent. Strong sector fit. Probe CRM experience before deciding.
Claude vs Gemini for this workflow
| Dimension | Claude | Gemini |
|---|---|---|
| Sticking to the criteria you set | Better | Good |
| Flagging what's missing vs what's unclear | Better | Good |
| Handling large batches of CVs in one go | Better | Good |
| Integration with Google Drive / Docs | Good | Better |
| Speed on free plan | Good | Better |
| Overall recommendation | Recommended | Solid alternative |
How to customise this workflow
For small business owners who've never shortlisted before
Even if you've never shortlisted before, the prompt above works as a starting point — but you'll get a sharper output if you add one line at the end: "If my criteria seem vague or hard to assess from a CV, flag it and suggest how I could make them more specific." Claude will tell you if "strong communicator" is doing nothing for you, which saves you from screening 20 CVs on a criterion you can't actually evaluate. The AI for HR Teams hub has more guides written for non-specialists doing hiring work without a team behind them.
For independent HR consultants working on multiple roles at once
Don't rewrite the criteria section for every role — save a version of the prompt per role type in your notes tool and swap in the specific criteria before pasting CVs. That drops the setup from five minutes to under one. The HR Prompt Builder is built for exactly this kind of reuse: you configure once, run repeatedly, and the output stays consistent across clients.
For roles where the job description didn't attract the right candidates
Before moving on to the next round, paste your shortlist summary back into Claude and ask: "Based on these assessments, what gaps or patterns are you seeing across the candidate pool? Is there anything in my criteria or the role description that might have attracted the wrong applications?" You'll often get a useful read on whether the problem was the brief, the channel, or the criteria themselves. Skip this if you're happy with the pool — it's only worth doing when you're not.
For diverse hiring and reducing unconscious bias
Criteria framed around skills and outcomes are more inclusive than criteria framed around pedigree — "experience leading a product launch" is assessable from many career paths; "worked at a top-10 agency" filters for one. Before running the prompt, read through your non-negotiables and ask: does each one trace directly back to something this hire will actually do? If the answer is "not really", cut it or reframe it. Anonymising CVs before pasting — replacing names and identifying details with neutral labels — also reduces the chance that pattern-matching on names or institutions shapes the assessment. The Job Description Workflow covers how to write a brief that attracts a broader candidate pool in the first place.