Greenhouse: 25% of hiring managers use AI to screen applicants – yet 8% are unsure what the AI prioritizes

Job seekers are losing faith in the hiring system, with almost one in two (46%) saying their trust in hiring has decreased over the past 12 months, according to Greenhouse’s AI in Hiring 2025 report.

42% of these job seekers directly blame AI for this hardship, with 62% of entry-level candidates feeling the same and 39% of job seekers in the UK, Ireland and Germany stating AI was the “turning point” for their loss of trust.

However, hiring managers in the US (68%) and Europe (65%) report being more involved in hiring than they were last year, and 39% of US hiring managers stating they are conducting more in-person interviews

To take a deeper dive into Greenhouse’s research, UNLEASH spoke exclusively to company CEO and Co-founder, Daniel Chait.

‘The hiring process today isn’t working’

Across both Europe (78%) and the US (74%), more candidates are leveraging AI tools to assist them with their job search, with nearly half explaining that they do so to get past automated filters.

Likewise, more than half (53%) of US recruiters admit that either AI or ATS systems complete screening checks.

Of these managers, one quarter are “not very confident” or “not confident at all,” in their AI screening system, with 8% admitting they don’t even know what it prioritizes.

The data also suggests that the most common candidate fraud tactics in the US are fake voices or backgrounds (32%), AI scripts (32%), and deep fakes (18%).

What’s more, over half (55%) of US candidates have suspected that AI has been used to evaluate their job applications.

Our latest survey shows a collapse in trust and efficiency,” Chait explains.

“91% of recruiters surveyed have spotted candidate deception, while 34% spend up to half their week filtering spam and junk applications. 

“Meanwhile, 41% of job seekers are “hacking” AI systems with prompt injection, and 52% of the rest say they are considering it, and 65% of hiring managers in the US have caught applicants using AI deceptively.”

However, hiring managers are striving to seek out candidates using AI in their applications, as 61% in the US, and 59% in the UK, Ireland, and Germany use software to detect when AI has been used.

Chait concludes: “The hiring process today isn’t working, and the more of today’s AI people use, the worse it’s getting.

“Greenhouse’s vision is to change the direction of hiring, using AI to help build trust and return humanity back to the process.”