Employ and VONQ Partner to Bring Responsible AI Candidate Screening Directly Into the Hiring Workflow
New integration helps recruiters identify most relevant candidates faster and fairer with skills-based AI screening embedded in Lever and JazzHR
DENVER, June 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Employ Inc., a leading provider of people-first, intelligent hiring solutions across JazzHR, Lever, and Jobvite, today announced a strategic partnership with VONQ, the agentic recruitment automation platform, to deliver automated early stage candidate screening for recruiters directly within Employ's applicant tracking systems.
As AI-generated applications flood hiring pipelines, recruiters are drowning in volume while losing sight of the candidates who actually fit. Genuine talent gets buried beneath low-intent applicants sending AI-polished CVs to hundreds of roles at once. This partnership brings together Employ's trusted hiring technology and AI Screening by VONQ to give recruiting teams a faster, fairer way to identify the right people early, without removing human judgment from the process. Now available in both JazzHR and Lever, the solution screens candidates against role-specific criteria at the very top of the funnel, so recruiters spend their time where it counts.
"Recruiters today are overwhelmed by application volume while candidates expect faster, more responsive hiring experiences," said Dara Brenner, Chief Product Officer at Employ. "By embedding VONQ's AI screening agent directly into our hiring workflows, we're helping customers identify the most relevant candidates earlier, reduce manual screening efforts, and make faster and fairer hiring decisions at every stage. Candidates get immediate, engaging responses the moment they apply instead of weeks of silence, so that by the time they reach a recruiter, the conversation can focus on the human connection that actually wins great people."
VONQ's AI screening agent engages candidates immediately after application through chat and voice, asking role-relevant questions and evaluating responses against the criteria that actually matter for the role. Recruiters receive a ranked shortlist with an explainable candidate dossier, not a pile of CVs to sort through. Candidates get a response within minutes rather than silence. Both sides of the hiring process move faster.
Hiring teams using AI Screening fill roles 2.5x faster. Candidate processing time drops from three weeks to two hours, and organizations see 60–75% fewer drop offs in the hiring funnel. The solution delivers standardized, explainable assessments that give hiring teams a consistent basis for every decision and a clear audit trail if they ever need one.
"Job titles and CVs tell you what someone has done," said Ritu Mohanka, CEO of VONQ. "They don't tell you what someone can do. Real skills-based hiring requires assessment at the point of application, before a recruiter ever opens a profile. That's what this partnership delivers: a shortlist built on demonstrated capability, not claimed experience, so hiring teams are focused on who to move forward.
Both companies have built governance and transparency into the core of their hiring solutions. AI Screening by VONQ is independently audited by Warden AI for bias, compliance, and responsible AI behavior. Employ is backed by IBM watsonx.
For organizations seeking to win the race for the best talent, the VONQ AI Screening Agent is now available within JazzHR and Lever. Employ and VONQ will showcase the integrated solution during a joint webinar on June 30.
Read Employ CPO Dara Brenner's blog for a closer look at how AI Screening creates a better experience for everyone involved by giving candidates a chance to be heard and giving recruiters richer data from the start.
For more information about Employ's hiring solutions, visit www.employinc.com.
About Employ Inc.
Employ delivers people-first intelligent hiring solutions that empower companies to overcome their greatest hiring challenges. From startups to Fortune 100 organizations, Employ powers hiring at scale, having processed 100 million job applications and made 650,000-plus hires across its customer community.
Through our AI-powered hiring platforms — including JazzHR, Lever, and Jobvite — Employ enables teams to move faster, hire smarter, and build strong workforces. Trusted by more than 26,000 organizations globally, Employ combines innovation, insights, and human-centered design to help companies with confidence.
Employ also publishes Job Seeker Nation and Recruiter Nation, two of the industry's most trusted and tenured research reports, turning real-world hiring data into insights that shape how companies attract, evaluate, and hire talent.
For more information, visit www.employinc.com.
About VONQ
VONQ is a global Talent Attraction Platform trusted by leading enterprise employers, staffing firms, and HRTech providers. Its flagship platform, EQO® brings together the full top-of-funnel hiring workflow - job content creation, distribution, attraction, screening, interviewing, and scoring - into a single agentic platform. Offering this workflow within one platform creates a better experience for both job seekers and hiring companies.
With over 20 years of market expertise and deep integrations across 85+ ATS and HCM partners, VONQ supports more than 350 enterprise and staffing customers across Europe, North America, and APAC, including Employ, Adecco, Danone, SoftwareOne, PwC, and Randstad. VONQ is recognised as a Strategic Leader in the Fosway 9-Grid™ for Talent Acquisition and is headquartered in Rotterdam, with offices in Groningen, Düsseldorf, and London.
SOURCE Employ Inc.
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