What Is CV Screening? A UK Employer's Guide

CV screening is the first sift of job applications: you check each CV against the role's essential criteria and decide who moves forward, who doesn't, and who you need to ask a question. It is not shortlisting. Screening removes applications that can't do the job, and shortlisting ranks the rest to choose who you interview.

Done well, screening is quick, consistent and easy to explain. Done badly, it rejects good people for reasons that have nothing to do with the job, some of which are unlawful in the UK. This guide covers the process, a worked example, what you must not screen on, and when manual review, an ATS or AI screening makes sense.

What CV screening checks

A CV can show evidence of experience, skills, qualifications and achievements. Screening asks one question per essential criterion: does this CV show it?

There are three honest answers:

• Yes: the CV gives clear evidence ("Managed 40 SME accounts, 2021–2024").
• No: the CV shows the person lacks it (one year of experience where the role needs three).
• Unclear: the CV doesn't say either way. That's a gap in the CV, not necessarily a gap in the person.

Most screening mistakes come from treating "unclear" as "no".

How to screen CVs in five steps

1. Write the essential criteria before you open a CV. Take them from the person specification. Keep the list to two to four items: each one is a reason to reject someone, so each one has to be something the person needs from day one.
2. Write what counts as evidence for each one. "Strong communication skills" can't be checked on a CV. "Has written customer-facing documentation or reports" can. Our guide to fair CV screening criteria has four tests for this.
3. Read every CV against the same criteria, in the same order. Mark each criterion yes, no or unclear. Don't score desirable criteria yet; that's shortlisting.
4. Ask one specific question when a CV is unclear. "Did your Account Executive role involve managing existing customers? Roughly how many?" takes a candidate a minute to answer and saves you losing someone who writes short CVs.
5. Write one line explaining each decision. "No: one year of account management, role needs two." Candidates can ask for their data under UK GDPR, and a line per decision is what lets you answer a challenge.

The CV screening rubric template sets this up as a sheet you can copy.

A worked example

Role: Payroll Administrator. Three essential criteria:

Criterion	Evidence that counts
E1: Has run a UK payroll end to end	Processed monthly or weekly payroll, not just inputs
E2: Has used a payroll system	Names a system (Sage, Xero, BrightPay or similar)
E3: Has handled statutory payments (SSP, SMP)	Mentions statutory pay, absence or leave payments

Four applications:

Candidate	E1	E2	E3	Decision	Reason
A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Move forward	All three evidenced
B	Yes	Yes	Unclear	Ask first	Ran payroll for 60 staff; statutory pay not mentioned
C	No	Yes	No	Don't progress	Accounts payable only; no payroll processing
D	Unclear	Yes	Yes	Ask first	"Payroll support": ran it, or prepared inputs?

B and D get one question each. Rejecting them now would be rejecting the CV, not the candidate. C fails on evidence the CV does show, so the decision is easy to explain.

What UK employers must not screen on

Some things on a CV should play no part in the decision, and a few are a legal risk.

• Protected characteristics. Age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation are protected under the Equality Act 2010, section 4. Proxies count too: a graduation year can signal age, and a name can signal race or religion.
• Right to work. You must check that someone can work in the UK before you employ them, and GOV.UK is clear that you must not discriminate against anyone because of where they're from. Do the check at offer stage, the same way for everyone, not by guessing from a CV's name, address or education history.
• Employment gaps on their own. A gap can be illness, caring, parental leave or redundancy. Rejecting on the gap alone can disadvantage people with protected characteristics. If the gap matters for the role, ask about it.
• Design and formatting. Unless the job is design, a plain CV says nothing about ability. Keyword counts are no better: they reward people who copy the advert.

Manual, ATS or AI screening?

	Manual review	ATS knockout questions	AI CV screening
How it decides	A person reads each CV	Fixed answers on the application form	Reads each CV against your criteria
Handles "unclear" CVs	Yes, if the reviewer is careful	No: the answer is yes or no	Good tools flag them and suggest a question
Consistent across 200	Hard; attention drifts	Yes, for the questions asked	Yes, if the criteria are set first
Explains each decision	Only if the reviewer writes it	Shows the failed question	Should show the CV evidence for every criterion
Main risk	Time and inconsistency	Rejects people over one form answer	Unexplained scores, or no person reviewing the outcome

Manual review works for a few dozen CVs. The time is easy to estimate: at three minutes a CV, 200 applications take ten hours of careful reading. The CV screening calculator works it out for your own numbers.

Knockout questions suit hard legal requirements, such as a driving licence for a driving role. They are a poor fit for experience, where the answer is rarely a clean yes or no.

AI screening suits volume, as long as a person makes the decision. If software rejects candidates with no meaningful human involvement, that is a solely automated decision with significant effects, and UK GDPR requires safeguards, including letting the candidate contest it and ask for a person to review it. The ICO's automated decision-making guidance covers the detail. Our manual vs automated CV screening comparison goes further on cost and accuracy.

How Marxel screens CVs

Marxel runs the five steps above at volume. You turn the job description and the hiring manager's notes into criteria, mark the must-haves and weight the rest, and your team reviews the criteria before any CV is processed. Each CV is then evaluated against them, with the CV evidence behind every criterion.

Recruiters see a Best match band for each candidate (Strong, Good, Partial or Low) next to which must-haves were met. Low means the CV evidences none of the must-haves you set. Where a CV doesn't answer a must-have, like candidates B and D above, Marxel suggests follow-up questions. Marxel won't add right to work, visa status or sponsorship as screening criteria: check them at offer. Your team makes every decision. See what one result looks like in this example candidate assessment.

FAQ

What is the difference between CV screening and shortlisting?

Screening checks each CV against the essential criteria and removes applications that can't do the job. Shortlisting scores the applications that pass on weighted desirable criteria and picks who to interview.

What should you look for when screening CVs?

Evidence for each essential criterion: specific roles, responsibilities, systems, qualifications and results. Decide what counts as evidence before you start, and ignore anything unrelated to the job, such as photos, age signals or CV design.

How long should it take to screen a CV?

Long enough to check every essential criterion against the same evidence rules. Reading for evidence is slower than skimming, so plan for volume: at three minutes a CV, 100 applications is five hours.

Is it legal to use AI to screen CVs in the UK?

Yes, with safeguards. You need a lawful basis to process candidates' data, you must tell candidates how you use it, and a person should make or meaningfully review each decision. Our GDPR CV screening guide covers what to put in place.

Related reading

• How to shortlist candidates: a worked scoring grid
• Fair CV screening criteria
• How to screen 200 CVs in a day
• Is AI CV screening accurate?

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Screening more CVs than you can read carefully? Marxel checks every application against criteria your team signs off, with the evidence beside each one. See how it works