Hiring and AI interview glossary.
Plain definitions of the hiring terms recruiters look up, from structured interviews and knockout questions to time to hire and candidate fraud.
A
- Adverse impact
A substantially lower selection rate for one group of candidates than for another at a step in hiring, such as a screen, a test or an interview. It is measured by comparing selection rates, the share of each group's candidates who pass the step, usually as a ratio to the rate of the group that passes most often; a common rule of thumb looks closer when that ratio falls below four-fifths (80 percent), and significance tests check whether a gap is bigger than chance would explain. Tracking it at each step shows where a process passes groups through at different rates, so the team can check whether that step measures what the job requires.
- AI interview
A job interview in which an AI system, rather than a person, asks the questions, by voice, video or text chat. Most are used early in hiring, where the system asks a set of questions, may follow up on answers, and gives the hiring team a recording, transcript, summary or scores to review. What happens next varies by employer and tool, which is why candidates benefit from knowing who reviews the interview and who makes the decision.
- AI interviewer
Software that conducts a job interview: it asks the questions, listens to the answers, asks follow-up questions, and produces a record such as a transcript, summary or scorecard for the hiring team. AI interviewers differ in format (voice, video or chat) and in how much of the decision they leave to people. DIO is an example: it holds a structured voice interview with each candidate in the browser, follows up when an answer needs more, and gives the team a scorecard, while a person on the team makes every hiring decision.
- AI screening interview
A first-round interview run by AI to check a candidate's basic fit for a role, such as relevant experience, interest, availability and pay expectations, before a recruiter or hiring manager spends time with them. Formats include AI phone screens, one-way video interviews scored by AI, chat-based screeners and voice interviews held in the browser. The output, usually a transcript, summary or scorecard, helps the team decide who to talk to next, so how it is scored and who reviews it matter as much as the questions.
- Applicant tracking system (ATS)
Software that employers and recruiting agencies use to run hiring: job postings, applications, candidate records, interview stages, messages and offers. It is usually the system of record for where each candidate stands, so recruiters often judge other hiring tools by how their results get into it.
- Asynchronous interview
An interview in which the candidate and the hiring team don't take part at the same time: the candidate answers when it suits them, and the team reviews the interview later. One-way video interviews are the best-known kind, and some AI interviews work the same way, holding a live conversation with the candidate whenever they start it. Because there is nothing to schedule, it removes the back-and-forth of booking a first-round slot, though the team still has to review every interview.
B
- Behavioral interview question
A question that asks how a candidate handled a real situation in the past, usually beginning “Tell me about a time when…”. It rests on the idea that past behavior in similar situations is a useful guide to future behavior, so a strong answer names a specific situation, what the candidate personally did and what happened. Behavioral questions are a core part of structured and competency-based interviews.
C
- Candidate experience
How candidates perceive an employer's hiring process at every step, from the job posting and application through interviews, communication, the decision and how it is delivered. It shapes whether candidates finish the process, accept offers and apply again, and what they tell others about the employer. Clear expectations, timely updates and respect for candidates' time are the parts a hiring team controls most directly.
- Candidate fraud
Deliberate deception by a job applicant during hiring, such as a fabricated résumé or credentials, a false identity, someone else taking the interview, or answers generated or fed in real time and passed off as the candidate's own. It ranges from individual exaggeration to organized schemes that use stolen or invented identities. Remote hiring makes some forms easier to attempt, which is why identity and the consistency of a candidate's story are worth checking at more than one stage.
- Candidate rediscovery
Searching the candidates already in your applicant tracking system or database, such as past applicants, runners-up and people sourced for earlier roles, before sourcing from scratch for a new opening. Those candidates have already shown interest and may be partly screened, so starting with them can save sourcing time. Records go stale, though, so availability, location and pay expectations need checking again.
- Competency
A defined, observable combination of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors that a job needs, such as problem solving, customer focus or patient assessment. Competencies turn a job description into things an interviewer can ask about and rate. Good ones are specific to the role and described in terms of what someone actually does, so two interviewers can agree on whether they saw it.
- Competency-based interview
An interview built around the competencies a job requires: each question targets a competency, and each answer is rated against criteria written for it in advance. It usually relies on behavioral questions, sometimes with situational ones, and a scorecard that ties each rating to evidence. Because every candidate is assessed on the same competencies, results can be compared consistently across candidates and interviewers.
- Cost per hire
The average cost of one hire: internal recruiting costs (such as recruiter time and referral bonuses) plus external costs (such as job ads, agency fees and assessments) for a period, divided by the number of hires in that period. A standard version of the formula, sponsored by SHRM and approved by ANSI in 2012, defines which costs count so organizations can compare like with like. On its own it says nothing about whether the hires worked out, so it is usually read alongside time to fill and quality of hire.
D
- Deepfake candidate
A job applicant who uses AI-generated or AI-altered video, audio or images to pose as someone else, or as a person who doesn't exist, usually in a remote interview. It is one form of candidate fraud, and it matters because a hire made under a false identity can give someone access to an employer's systems, data or payroll.
H
- High-volume hiring
Hiring many people for the same or similar roles in a short period, typically hourly or entry-level jobs in retail, warehousing, hospitality, contact centers, healthcare support and seasonal work. The number of applicants makes a recruiter's phone screen with every candidate impractical, so the first round depends on consistent questions, clearly stated requirements and a fast way for candidates to start. The risk is that speed wins over care, with good candidates lost to slow replies or blunt automatic filters.
- Human in the loop
A way of designing an automated system so that a person reviews, approves or can override its output before it takes effect. In hiring, it means software can collect, organize or score information, but a person makes or confirms decisions such as advancing or rejecting a candidate. What matters in practice is that the person has the evidence and the time to disagree with the software, not just a button to approve it.
I
- Interview intelligence
Software that records and transcribes job interviews, usually ones run by people, and turns them into notes, summaries and feedback organized around the role's criteria. Some tools also report on the interviews themselves, such as how much the interviewer talked or which planned questions were asked. It gives hiring teams a full record in place of handwritten notes and can help keep interviews consistent across interviewers.
- Interview rubric
A scoring guide that describes, for each question or competency, what an answer at each level of the rating scale looks like. It turns an impression such as 'I liked them' into a rating others can check, because every interviewer scores against the same written standard. A rubric usually sits inside the interview scorecard, and its level descriptions are often called rating anchors.
- Interview scorecard
A form an interviewer completes for each candidate, listing the role's competencies or criteria, a rating for each and the evidence behind each rating. It keeps every interviewer focused on the same job-related criteria and makes candidates easier to compare. Completed right after the interview, with evidence rather than impressions, it also becomes the record a hiring decision can be checked against.
K
- Knockout question
A yes-or-no or short-answer question about a hard requirement, such as a required license, shift availability or the ability to start by a certain date, asked early in an application or interview. Some systems remove applicants automatically when an answer doesn't meet the requirement; others flag the answer for a recruiter to review. How strictly they are applied matters, because a candidate can misread a question or have a reasonable exception.
O
- Offer acceptance rate
The share of formal job offers that candidates accept in a period: offers accepted divided by offers extended, multiplied by 100. A falling rate can point to a gap between what the role offers and what candidates expect, in pay, flexibility or the work itself, or to a slow or poor experience before the offer. Decide up front how to count withdrawn, revised and verbal offers, so the number stays comparable over time.
- One-way video interview
A recorded interview in which candidates answer preset questions on video, on their own schedule, with no interviewer present, and reviewers watch the recordings later. Platforms often give candidates time to think and a time limit for each answer, and some add transcription or AI scoring. It removes scheduling from the first round, but nobody can ask a follow-up question, so a vague answer stays vague.
P
- Phone screen
A short phone call, usually with a recruiter, early in hiring to confirm a candidate's interest, relevant experience, availability and pay expectations before a longer interview. It weeds out clear mismatches on both sides and sets expectations about the role and the process. Because it needs a time when both people are free, it becomes a bottleneck when applicants are numerous or hard to reach.
- Pre-screening interview
A brief first-round interview that checks whether a candidate meets a role's basic requirements and is still interested, before the hiring team invests in longer interviews. It typically covers experience, motivation, availability, pay expectations and any hard requirements, and it can run by phone, video, chat or with an AI interviewer. Asking every candidate the same questions at this stage makes the shortlist easier to compare and to explain.
- Proxy interviewing
A form of candidate fraud in which someone other than the applicant answers the interview questions for them, either by impersonating the applicant or by feeding answers in real time from out of view. The employer assesses one person and hires another, which is why identity is worth confirming at more than one stage of hiring.
Q
- Quality of hire
A measure of how much value new hires add once they start, usually built from several signals such as performance ratings, retention after a set period, time to full productivity and the hiring manager's satisfaction. There is no single standard formula, so each organization chooses and weights its own inputs. It is the outcome speed and cost metrics are meant to serve, but it takes months to show and depends on linking hiring data to performance data.
R
- Rating anchors
Short descriptions of what an answer looks like at specific points on a rating scale, for example what earns a 1, a 3 and a 5 for a given competency. Anchors tied to observable behavior, as in behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS), help different interviewers give the same answer the same score. Without them, ratings drift toward each interviewer's personal standard.
S
- Situational interview question
A question that describes a realistic, job-related scenario and asks what the candidate would do, such as how they would handle an angry customer whose late delivery can't be fixed today. It tests judgment and job knowledge and suits candidates with little relevant experience, since it doesn't depend on having faced the situation before. It differs from a behavioral question, which asks what the candidate actually did in the past.
- STAR method
A way to structure an answer to a behavioral interview question in four parts: the Situation, the Task the candidate faced, the Action they took and the Result. Candidates use it to give complete, specific answers, and interviewers use it to spot what's missing, most often the candidate's own actions or the outcome, and ask a follow-up.
- Structured interview
An interview in which every candidate for a role is asked the same job-related questions, in the same order, and each answer is rated against the same predefined scale. Meta-analyses in personnel psychology, from Schmidt and Hunter (1998) to Sackett and colleagues (2022), rank structured interviews among the strongest predictors of job performance, and they make candidates easier to compare and decisions easier to explain. Follow-up questions can still respond to what a candidate says, as long as the core questions and the scoring stay fixed.
T
- Time to fill
The number of days from when a job opening is approved or posted to when a candidate accepts the offer. It measures how long a role stays open, so it captures delays in approvals, sourcing and interviewing as well as the candidate's decision. Organizations differ on the start point (approval or posting) and sometimes the end point (acceptance or start date), so the definition needs to be fixed before numbers are compared.
- Time to hire
The number of days from when a candidate enters the hiring process, by applying or being sourced, to when they accept the offer. It measures how quickly the process moves a candidate who is already in the pipeline, which is where slow scheduling and slow feedback show up. It is usually shorter than time to fill, which starts when the job is opened.