"It became both more accurate and more personal"
More personal pre-interviews with the help of AI? It may sound contradictory. But for Swedish trade union Vision, that became the reality.
When Vision wanted to speed up its hiring process, and at the same time make it more structured and more accurate, they turned to Tengai's screening pre-interview platform. By integrating AI interviews into their hiring strategy, the organization reduced time-to-hire, improved the candidate experience and freed up valuable time for both hiring managers and the Talent Acquisition team.
The challenge: Improving candidate experience while supporting hiring managers during high recruitment pressure
Vision represents more than 210,000 members across municipalities, regions and the Swedish Church. Around 300 employees work at Vision's Stockholm office, where the HR team plays a key role in ensuring a fair hiring method. They practice a competency-based recruitment methodology that favors a defined set of skills and abilities when assessing candidates, rather than educational background and experience alone.
As hiring demands increased, Vision saw the need for a recruitment process that felt structured, unbiased and professional for both candidates and hiring managers. In addition, it needed to be fast and automated where possible, but also human.
"We had a clear need to both save time and improve quality without losing the human aspect or candidate experience," said HR Generalist Ann Eberhardsson at Vision.
For Vision, it is essential that all candidates experience a fair and bias-free process regardless of their background. Not only because it strengthens Vision as an employer, but also because candidates may become members of the union after employment.
"Candidates today are often involved in multiple recruitment processes at once. That means we need to be perceived as an inclusive, modern and responsive employer at all times, including during the hiring process," said Ann.
At the same time, managers needed structured data about candidates to make objective hiring decisions early in the process. By giving managers access to structured tools and evidence-based methods — and building bias mitigation into the process — the hiring team could make decisions faster and speed up time-to-hire.
The solution: Structured and unbiased AI interviews
Vision first discovered Tengai when Ann herself was recruited a few years back. At that time, Tengai was a physical robot designed to create competency-based and unbiased interviews.
That became the starting point for the future collaboration.
"I think I'm actually one of the reasons we started working with Tengai," Ann says with a laugh. "We first tested it in one recruitment process and quickly saw the potential to improve the quality of our hiring."
How the process works today
To find the best setup, Vision experimented with different ways of using Tengai. Initially, candidates completed pre-interviews before HR had even reviewed CVs or applications.
Over time, the process evolved into a more seamless and automated workflow through an integration between Tengai and the ATS ReachMee.
Today the workflow looks like this:
- Pre-screening is done in ReachMee based on screening questions
- Top candidates move on to a structured screening interview with Tengai's AI avatar
- The structured interview data that Tengai collects is reviewed
- CVs and additional materials are reviewed
"It gives us a much deeper understanding of candidates while making the interview process far more efficient. We focus on competencies and the candidates' interview answers instead of our own gut feeling or tone of voice. It has completely changed how we think about recruitment."
Today, Tengai is used across the organization for roles ranging from advisors and union representatives to managers and HR specialists.
"After optimizing the process over time, it works incredibly well. We don't see any difference in how candidates experience the interview with the AI avatar, regardless of role."
The result: Faster recruitment with fewer interview rounds
Thanks to Tengai, Vision has significantly reduced time-to-hire without compromising quality of hire.
"We've been able to reduce the number of interviews from two to one because Tengai handles the initial screening interview. That saves time for both HR and hiring managers, but most importantly it creates a smoother experience for candidates."
In practice, this leaner interview-to-hire ratio has shortened the candidate journey without compromising on rigor. Vision's goal is clear:
"Our ambition is to complete a recruitment process within six weeks, from identified need to signed offer. That would not have been possible without Tengai."
Better decision-making through structured insights
The AI interviews are part of Tengai's screening solution. They serve as the interface to collect structured interview data. Once interviews are completed, Tengai generates an automated shortlist that helps recruitment teams compare candidates objectively against the role requirements.
"The shortlist is extremely valuable for our recruitment team. It gives us a clear overview of how candidates responded and how well they match the skills we're looking for. Tengai gives us the data but doesn't make decisions. We do."
Vision also uses Tengai to add case-based questions to the interviews.
"We've added role-specific questions. This has been a great way to validate competence. It also forces us to work in a more structured way with our job requirements and profiles."
High candidate satisfaction
Tengai's candidate satisfaction remains very high at Vision. According to the organization, this is thanks to the interactive AI avatar, which feels more engaging than traditional chatbot-based hiring tools.
"We always follow up after every recruitment process and consistently see very high candidate satisfaction. Candidates describe the experience as fair and surprisingly personal, despite the technology behind it."
One feature candidates especially appreciate is the immediate feedback after the screening interview.
"Fast feedback matters. Candidates really value it, and it strengthens our employer brand."
Next step: Giving managers more control
The collaboration between Vision and Tengai continues to evolve. The next step is to give hiring managers even more ownership of the hiring process, directly within the platform — strengthening Vision's talent pipeline over time.
"Today HR handles most of the process, but we want managers to activate Tengai themselves. It will save even more time and create a smoother experience when everything is managed in one place."
Start small and keep improving
For organizations considering automating their screening process, Ann has a clear message:
"Be willing to test it. Identify where you want to improve. Is it candidate experience, screening quality, more structured data or reducing workload? Start with a pilot, talk to candidates and adjust along the way."
For Vision, recruitment is ultimately part of the employer brand itself.
"Most organizations struggle with talent acquisition in some way. It's easy to think that posting a job is enough, but it's not. Recruitment needs to be more long-term, structured and respectful towards both candidates and hiring needs."
Even candidates who don't get the job should leave with a positive experience.
"We've had candidates complete Tengai interviews up to ten times without getting hired, and they still come back and apply again. That says a lot about the experience we're creating."
Looking to recruit faster without compromising quality? Discover how Tengai can become part of your recruitment strategy. Book a demo with our team today.