Setting Up AI Interviews

The AI Interviewer conducts voice screenings with candidates — asking questions, following up in real time, and producing a scored transcript you can review later. Setup happens at the pipeline-stage level.

Adding an AI Interview stage#

Open the job whose pipeline you want to update and go to Pipeline → Edit stages.

Click Add stage.
Pick the stage type AI Interview.
Give the stage a name (e.g., "Initial Screen").
Choose where in the pipeline order it goes. Typically after "Application Review" and before a human interview round.

Save the pipeline. The stage is now live but may be paused by default — toggle it to active when you're ready to start sending interviews.

Interview duration#

Set the target length of the interview, between 5 and 60 minutes (default: 15).

The AI paces itself based on this target. Shorter durations force tighter, more focused questions; longer durations allow more depth per topic. For most screening use cases, 15 minutes is the right starting point.

Questions#

Elly auto-generates 4–6 questions based on the job title and description. These appear in the stage settings, where you can:

Edit each question.
Reorder them.
Remove questions you don't need.
Add your own.

A minimum of one question is required. Mix role-specific questions with a general opener ("Tell me a bit about yourself") for best results.

The AI will ask follow-up questions dynamically based on the candidate's answers — you don't need to pre-script every follow-up.

Scorecard template#

Alongside questions, Elly generates a scorecard template of 3–5 evaluation criteria specific to the role. Every interview is scored against this template automatically.

You can:

Edit the criteria directly from the stage settings.
Swap in a different template from your saved templates library.
Reuse the same template across multiple jobs for consistent evaluation.

See Scorecard Templates for how templates work.

Auto-email toggle#

Decide how candidates get invited:

Auto-email ON — When a candidate enters this stage (manually or automatically), they receive an interview invitation email immediately.
Auto-email OFF — Candidates enter the stage but no email is sent. You send invitations manually, or share the generic link.

See Invitation Methods for the full picture.

Previewing the interviewer#

Before enabling a stage for real candidates, click Preview Interviewer from the stage settings. You'll experience exactly what a candidate experiences — the device check, the voice conversation, the sign-off — using the questions and scorecard you've configured.

Previews don't create candidate records, don't cost credits, and don't produce scores.

Pausing the stage#

Each stage has an Active / Paused toggle. Pausing:

Stops new auto-emails from going out.
Leaves existing scheduled interviews in place.
Lets candidates who already received a link still complete it.

Use pause when you need to tune questions or scorecards mid-flight without tearing down the stage.

Next steps#

Invitation Methods →