How to Prompt AI as a Recruiter

TL;DR: AI can handle most of the legwork in recruiting: sourcing, CV review, outreach, interview prep. What it needs from you is context. Tell it your hiring bar, your ICP, your communication style. Brief it once and it applies that knowledge to everything after.

Recruiting is a volume game that rewards speed and personalisation at the same time. The average open role now attracts over 250 applications, and you're trying to give every person a decent experience while sourcing across dozens of channels. Most of that work is repetitive. AI is very good at repetitive.

What can AI do for recruiters?

Sourcing candidates from LinkedIn, reviewing CVs against a job spec, writing personalised outreach, prepping interview questions, keeping your ATS updated. SHRM research shows AI can reduce cost-per-hire by up to 30% when applied to these workflows. The parts that take hours of clicking can usually be handled in minutes with the right prompt.

What we see working especially well is sending the AI to gather context before it acts. Before drafting outreach to a candidate, it checks their LinkedIn and recent activity. Before sourcing, it checks what you already know about the role and team. With Strawberry, your companion runs those checks automatically before producing anything. You don't have to hand it a brief each time.

Why do most recruiters get mediocre results from AI?

They paste in a job description and ask for "top candidates." That's too vague to produce anything useful. AI prompts for recruiting work when they're grounded in specifics: what the role actually requires, what good looks like, what shouldn't be on the shortlist.

The other common issue is starting from scratch every session. The recruiters getting the most value have briefed their AI on their hiring standards, their employer brand, and their communication style. Strawberry automatically stores that in memory, so your companion already knows your hiring bar before you say a word.

What are the best AI prompts for recruiters?

These are the prompts we see working consistently for recruiting teams using Strawberry.

Finding candidates for a role

Help me find candidates for an open role. Ask me for the job title, key requirements, and where to search. You might want to check what you know about our hiring bar and ideal profile before sourcing. Build a shortlist and add it to a tracker with LinkedIn URLs and a brief note on why each person fits.

The "check what you know" line matters. If you've briefed your companion on your hiring standards, it applies them without being asked again.

Reviewing CVs against a job spec

I need to review a set of CVs for a role. Ask me where the CVs are and what the job spec looks like. Then go through each one and give me a summary of fit, flagging the strongest candidates and any gaps worth exploring in an interview.

This is the task that eats most of a recruiter's day. A well-prompted AI can do a first pass in minutes and surface the four candidates worth reading carefully.

Writing candidate outreach

Help me write outreach messages for a list of candidates I want to reach. Ask me where the list is and what the role is. You might want to check what you know about our employer brand and communication style before drafting. Then research each person briefly and write a personalised message for each one.

The personalisation is real. The AI reads their LinkedIn, finds something specific, and writes a message that reads like it was written by a person who actually looked at their profile.

Preparing interview questions

Help me prepare interview questions for an upcoming interview. Ask me who I'm interviewing, what the role is, and what I already know about the candidate. Then generate a mix of structured competency questions and questions tailored to their background.

Setting up a candidate pipeline tracker

Help me build a candidate pipeline tracker. If you don't already know which role and what stages we use, ask me. Set it up in a Google Sheet with columns for candidate name, current stage, last contact date, and next action. You might want to check whether I already have a format I prefer.

What makes a good AI prompt for recruiting?

Three things consistently improve output. First, invite the AI to check what it already knows before asking questions. If you've told it your hiring bar and your ATS, it should use that context automatically. Second, be specific about output format: "shortlist with a note on fit" is better than "find candidates." Third, build context over time. Every preference you share makes the next prompt more accurate.

We've written similar guides for sales teams and operations teams. The same principles apply.

What's the best AI tool for recruiters?

Recruiting requires a tool that can actually browse LinkedIn, read documents from your Drive, and update your ATS. Not a chatbot that generates text in a box.

Strawberry Browser is an AI browser where your companion works inside your existing tools and builds context about your hiring standards over time.

Try it at strawberrybrowser.com.