Not every CV deserves five minutes of your time. Some deserve thirty seconds and a clear no. The trick is knowing which is which before you start reading.
The knockout checklist
These are binary checks. Yes or no. Any no is an automatic reject.
Does the candidate meet the minimum years of experience for this role? Do they have the required technical skills or qualifications listed as non-negotiable in the job description? Is there evidence of relevant domain experience? Did they follow any application instructions (if you included any)?
That last one is underrated. If you asked for a cover letter and they didn’t send one, or asked them to include a specific word in their subject line and they didn’t, that’s a signal about attention to detail and instruction-following that’s relevant to almost every role.
The quality checklist
Once a candidate clears the knockouts, a quick quality pass takes another 30 to 60 seconds.
Are achievements described with specific outcomes or just job duties? Is there a logical career progression? Are there unexplained gaps paired with vague role descriptions? Does the seniority match what you’re hiring for?
Score each of these one to three. High scorers go to the shortlist. Everyone else goes to the maybe pile that you’ll never actually return to.
Use the checklist to calibrate your AI screening
If you’re using AI to screen at volume, your checklist is your rubric. Feed it in explicitly: these are my knockouts, these are my quality signals, this is the weighting. The AI applies it consistently. You review the output.
Sieve lets you set your criteria once per role and applies them automatically across every applicant. Your checklist becomes a ranked shortlist. Start at sievecv.com.