A new platform called FirstLook has launched with the express purpose of tackling the rapidly worsening problem of AI-generated applications that are inundating employer inboxes and making meaningful recruitment increasingly difficult. Candidates using the platform are required to work through a short skills assessment before their CV becomes accessible to a prospective employer, with the platform simultaneously monitoring behavioural signals throughout the exercise to produce an authenticity score attached to each application.
The challenge FirstLook has been created to solve is well evidenced by recent industry data. Ashby’s 2025 Talent Trends Report shows that the volume of applications per hire has almost tripled compared with 2021, and separate research from Greenhouse published in November 2025 reveals that three quarters of job seekers are now turning to AI tools to help them write their applications. The practical consequence for recruiters is an average of 23 hours spent on candidate screening for every single hire, with little reliable means of distinguishing between applicants who have invested genuine time and thought and those who have used AI to produce bulk submissions at minimal personal effort.
The approach FirstLook takes is a deliberate inversion of the standard recruitment process. Where most hiring begins with a review of CVs and reserves any form of assessment for a later stage, FirstLook requires candidates to respond to a single assessment question set by the employer before anything else is taken into consideration. The platform observes and records behavioural engagement signals as the candidate completes the task, producing a process score that reflects the manner in which the work was done rather than the content of what was submitted. Candidates are subsequently ranked according to their engagement level, enabling recruiters to direct their attention first towards those who have shown the greatest genuine investment. The assessment of actual answer quality is left entirely to human judgement at all times.
“We hire people regularly, and what we’re seeing more and more is hundreds of CVs landing in the inbox, all sounding the same,” said Alex Cohen, co-founder of FirstLook. “It’s clear people are going straight to AI tools and sending in whatever it produces. That makes it incredibly hard for recruiters to see who’s good and who isn’t and it’s not fair to the candidates who put genuine effort in either.”
“Our scoring doesn’t try to judge the quality of someone’s answer. It measures whether a real person sat down and did the work,” said Christian Jones, co-founder of FirstLook. “If you spent fifteen minutes thinking and typing and editing, that shows up. If you pasted in an AI response in ninety seconds, that shows up too. It gives candidates who take the time a genuine advantage, which is how hiring should work.”
What distinguishes FirstLook from the existing landscape of assessment and screening tools is a clear and deliberate decision not to use AI in the scoring or ranking of candidate quality. All submissions are retained and available for employers to review directly at any time. The platform does not automatically eliminate any candidate from consideration; that decision always rests with a person. Candidates are informed from the outset that behavioural data will be gathered during the assessment. The scores produced are used purely to help employers work through their applicant queue more efficiently, are never used to trigger automatic rejections and are not disclosed to the candidates themselves.
At launch, FirstLook supports two assessment formats: a written response exercise and a code challenge, with plans to introduce audio and video assessment options in a future update.
The platform’s pricing has been structured to accommodate a wide range of employers. A free tier is available for those with a single active role. Beyond that, individual roles can be posted on a one-off basis at £49 each. A Starter subscription at £79 per month covers up to five active roles simultaneously, whilst the Professional plan at £199 per month extends this to 20 active roles. Every pricing tier includes the full set of platform features without any limitations or feature gating applied.
