How to build your first recruitment workflow with AI
Everyone talks about "automation" but most recruiters don't know where to start. This guide walks you through building your first AI workflow — step by step, no code required.
If you're new to AI in recruitment, start by understanding what AI agents actually are before diving into this guide.
Step 1: Pick the right task to automate
Not everything should be automated. The best candidates for automation are tasks that are:
- Repetitive — you do the same thing every day/week
- Time-consuming — takes 30+ minutes each time
- Low-judgement — doesn't need your expertise to execute
- Data-heavy — lots of copying, pasting, searching
Tap the tasks below that match your day-to-day. If you're selecting more than two, you've got plenty of automation opportunities:
Good first automations: Candidate longlist building, company research for BD calls, CRM data entry, follow-up reminders, market mapping.
Bad first automations: Client negotiations, candidate qualification calls, offer management. These need human judgement — that's where you add value.
Step 2: Map out what you actually do
Before you automate anything, write down the exact steps you take manually. Be specific. For example, building a candidate longlist might look like this:
Open LinkedIn Recruiter
Log in, navigate to search, set up your filters.
Search by job title, location, keywords
Build your Boolean string or use LinkedIn's filters. Spend 10-15 minutes refining.
Scroll through results, open interesting profiles
Click, read, back button, repeat. 50-100 profiles to get 20 good ones.
Check experience, company, tenure
Manually assess each candidate's fit for the role.
Copy name, title, company, LinkedIn URL
Into a spreadsheet. Tab, copy, tab, paste. Over and over.
Find their email via an enrichment tool
Open Lusha, ContactOut, or Hunter. Copy the LinkedIn URL. Get the email. Paste it back.
Add to CRM or outreach tool
More copying and pasting. Or export CSV and import. Either way, more manual work.
That's 7 steps, probably taking 1-2 hours for a decent longlist. Each of those steps can be handled by AI.
Step 3: Choose your tools
You have three main approaches. Pick the one that matches your team's technical comfort level:
Easiest. Platforms like Recruitment Agent Hub handle the entire workflow. You describe what you want, the agent executes. No setup, no integration headaches.
Best for: Agencies that want results now, not a side project. You get the automation without becoming a tech team.
Medium difficulty. Tools like n8n, Make, or Zapier let you connect different services together. More flexible but requires some learning and setup time.
Best for: Agencies with someone technical enough to build and maintain workflows. Expect a few weekends of setup before it's reliable.
Hardest. Build your own using APIs and code. Maximum control but needs technical skills or a developer.
Best for: Agencies with developers on staff, or those building something truly custom. Most agencies don't need this level of complexity.
Recommendation: Start with Option A or B. You can always go deeper later. The goal right now is to save time, not become a developer.
Step 4: Build it simple, then improve
Your first workflow doesn't need to be perfect. Build the simplest version that saves you time, then iterate. Here's how a typical workflow evolves:
Search and save
"Search LinkedIn for [title] in [location], save results to my database." This alone saves 45 minutes per longlist.
Search, save, and enrich
Add email enrichment — now you've got contact details too. No more switching between tools to find emails.
Full pipeline automation
Add to outreach campaign automatically — full pipeline from search to first touch. The workflow does in minutes what used to take half a day.
Each version builds on the last. You don't need V3 on day one.
Step 5: Measure what you've saved
Track two things:
- Time saved per task: How long did it take manually vs. with the workflow?
- Volume increase: Are you contacting more people? Mapping more companies? Following up more consistently?
Most recruiters who set up their first workflow report saving 5-10 hours per week. That's an extra day of actual recruiting — calling candidates, meeting clients, closing deals.
What mistakes should you avoid?
These are the pitfalls we see most often. Use this checklist to keep yourself on track:
Once your first workflow is humming, you'll want to look at owning your data — because the more you automate, the more important it is that your data lives somewhere you control.
Common Questions
What is the best first recruitment task to automate?
▼Candidate longlist building. It's repetitive, time-consuming (1-2 hours per list), data-heavy, and doesn't require your personal expertise to execute. Automating this alone typically saves 5-10 hours per week.
Do I need to code to build an AI recruitment workflow?
▼No. All-in-one platforms handle everything for you, and no-code tools like n8n and Make let you connect services with visual builders. Custom code builds are optional and only needed for maximum control.
Bottom line: Pick one task you do every week that takes over 30 minutes. That's your first workflow. Everything else builds from there.
Need help picking your first workflow? I'll walk you through it.
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