The fact that AI can help to boost efficiency in recruitment is in very little doubt, and Forbes data states that 79% of organisations already use automation and/or AI in recruitment and hiring.

There are many benefits of AI in hiring which include:

• Reduced bias
• Recruitment efficiency and speed
• Candidate experience
• Diversity and inclusion
• Scale – for larger organisations or those with high volumes of employee recruitment AI enables scalability without the associated increases in operating costs

Putting data at the heart of your recruitment agency.

One of the main problems high-growth agencies face is the need to do more with the same, or even less, resource.

Campbell Nelson, Marketing Director at Firefish, says: “Lower operational budgets and higher revenue needs are ultimately the problems that we have seen across agencies.

“Finding new business with the same headcount, working through the sea of AI-generated applications with the same or fewer heads and needing to do more with the same or fewer heads.”

Firefish’s Job Flow Index found that applications per job are surging, with the increase in AI-generated CVs contributing to this shift.

Recruitment agencies are receiving more CVs that look good on the surface than ever before. Of course, recruiters are no strangers to admin overload, but with a sea of AI-generated CVs to tackle, what are they truly up against?

• Hours lost during the uploading and formatting of CVs
• Difficulty accurately assessing skills at scale, especially when dealing with high volumes of applicants
• Increased risk of missing top talent due to human oversight or incomplete data
• AI-generated CVs that look good but aren’t always a match in reality

Campbell says: “It's easier than ever for candidates to go on ChatGPT, upload a job spec and ask for their CV to be tailored to that job spec.

“This is a challenge we’ve seen a lot of agencies come up against, and they’re not sure how to find clarity in the sea of applications coming in for every role.”

This poses a challenge for agencies using typical ATS keyword ranking systems, too.

A survey by Resume Builder found that nearly half (46%) of job seekers had used ChatGPT to write their resumes or cover letters; 70% of those were successful in securing interviews.

Manual CV processing and skills matching reduce recruiter productivity, increase operational costs, create delays in candidate placement and take up valuable time - time that could be spent engaging candidates and clients.

So, how can AI help?

​AI is playing an increasingly important role in recruitment.

A survey by the Recruitment and Employment Confederations (REC) found 48% of UK recruitment agencies have adopted some form of AI technology.

Embedding AI into CRM software offers recruitment agencies a competitive edge through tangible improvements in efficiency, accuracy and the candidate experience.

Tools like AI CV Parsing and AI Skills Parsing are removing heavy administrative loads, allowing recruiters to focus on what they do best: connecting with people and finding the right talent.

In fact, high-growth agencies are succeeding today by combining technology with human expertise and understanding.

This article explores how AI within recruitment CRM software addresses common recruitment challenges and delivers measurable impact - helping agencies save time, increase placements and streamline workflows from the get-go.

By hovering over a skill, the AI CV Parser tells recruiters why a skill has been included. This enables the recruiter to instantly access a clear picture of a candidate’s skill set, without having to trawl through CVs to identify them.

Source: Future of the Recruitment Industry Report | 2025

35

new data points compared to legacy parsers

The AI CV Parser populates an average of 35 additional data points across 5 key areas within a candidate record when compared to legacy Parsers, reducing manual data entry effort by automating CV scanning and uploading. 

This delivers more accurate candidate profiles with minimal effort, saving recruiters hours per week, while freeing them up to undertake more human-centric tasks.

Firefish’s AI CV Parser looks for tangible outcomes linked to skills, focussing on hard skills rather than soft skills - with 10 top skills extracted from the CV, chosen based on the next step in a candidate’s career.

Each record of employment history has skills attributed to that window of employment, for example, A/B testing and conversion optimisation, email marketing, automation and management which are weighted at different rankings of skills.

These skills will be ranked: 

• Three stars for experts at managerial level
• Two stars is intermediate in terms of their level of autonomy for a period of time
• One star is for beginner level and the skills associated with that knowledge 

AI Skills parsing analyses candidates’ skills from CVs and flags the best matches for open roles through intelligent and automatic data extraction, matching candidates to a role for skills measured by outcomes, rather than matching keyword frequency to a job spec.

The Firefish AI Skills Parser pulls skills out automatically by evaluating the entirety of a candidate's experience and history.

The key outcomes?

• More searchable profiles
• No skills missed
• No admin time required to find skills

CV Parsers save recruiters hours of admin while improving the searchability of their CRM database, but how?

The AI parses CVs to make profiles far richer and includes top skills, a breakdown of employment history with linkable companies and a list of certifications including when these run out.

Most CV Parsers tend to analyse for keyword frequency, which can be a nightmare in the age of AI processed CVs, as they are often stuffed with keywords. Firefish’s AI Parser automatically analyses a candidate's CV, pulling out skills based on outcomes, not just keyword frequency.

It then creates a recruiter summary, making it a great tool to analyse the compatibility of a candidate within your CRM for a specific role. The AI Parser then automatically populates the profile with a candidate’s personal details, notice period, job title and the direct link to their LinkedIn profile.

Machine learning and AI is changing the way recruitment agencies learn and gather information about the candidates in their CRM talent pool.

AI personalised CVs are everywhere, with the volume of applications coming through for each role growing week on week. So, how can recruitment agencies create structure and clarity through the AI noise?

An AI Skills Parser looks at a candidate’s employment history and automatically builds a skills profile based on the achievements that can be measured within a candidate’s employment history.

Recruitment Agency Leadership

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Integrating AI features into recruitment CRM systems leads to measurable business impacts for recruitment agencies in several key areas.

Agencies using AI-embedded CRMs experience:

• Time savings: CV screening time reduced by 75%, from hours to mere minutes per candidate
• Cost reduction: Operational expenses trimmed by 15%
• Improved matching and recruitment efficiency: 86% of recruiters report that AI-driven tools enhance efficiency and reduce time-to-hire by as much as 70% in some cases 
• Faster placements: Hiring cycles speed up

Firefish’s AI CV Parser and AI Skills Parser populate candidate profiles with 300% more information that enables recruiters to get candidates to market quicker and convert more placements.

300%

more information

With our cutting-edge AI Parser, you can:

• Instantly generate professional candidate summaries
• Intelligently identify demonstrated skills tailored to a candidate's potential next role
• Provide detailed yet concise employment history summaries
• Clearly organise certifications with dates and descriptive insights

Let’s take a closer look at how AI affects recruiter productivity, placement rates and operational costs:

AI CV Parsing saves recruiters time: Save hours on summarising your candidate CVs and instantly create rich and compelling recruiter summaries that highlight the key attributes of your best candidates.

Build candidate profiles in seconds by extracting employment history, demonstrated skills, certifications and more

Automatically merge summaries into CV send emails and Spec CV approaches to supercharge Business Development and secure more interviews.

AI note taking: The AI CV Parser automatically transcribes calls into well formatted notes and posts them immediately to your candidate or contact record 

Task automation: Win faster with reduced data admin time using task management workflows and bulk actions, giving recruiters more time to focus on relationship building

 
Data automation: Simplify and automate manual data management tasks to ensure that the data in your recruitment CRM is enriched, active and compliant

Duplicate Management: Firefish automatically flags duplicates that have been added manually. The AI merges duplicate records and combine candidate, and client records.

Bulk Actions: Optimise the data in your recruitment CRM in bulk to save hours of database cleansing and management tasks.

Record Archiving/Deleting: Take total control of your recruitment agency's database, ensuring that your agency remains compliant and that all data remains relevant.

Spec CVs: Maintain and develop client relationships by equipping recruiters with the tools to send anonymised Spec CVs in seconds from within your recruitment CRM.