AI Recruiting Academy

Free lessons that teach recruiters how AI works in hiring, from the basics to sourcing, screening, the law, your own AI stack and the rest of the recruiting desk.

Learn AI for recruiting, one plain answer at a time

The AI Recruiting Academy is a free set of short lessons for recruiters who know their desk but not the technology. Each lesson answers one question in plain English, shows how it plays out in a real recruiting workflow, and points you to the tools that do the job.

No jargon you have not been taught yet. No sales pitch. Start at lesson one or jump to the question you have today.

Start lesson 1

Who is this for?

Agency recruiters, corporate recruiters, sourcers and small business owners who hire. If your manager just asked you to “start using AI” and you are not sure where to begin, this is where to begin.

How the Academy works

There are six modules. Each module has five lessons, and each lesson takes about ten minutes to read. Every lesson opens with a short answer you can use straight away, then goes deeper for readers who want the detail. At the end of each lesson you will find links to the matching tool categories in the Work Insiders directory, so you can see which products actually do what the lesson describes.

The curriculum

Module 1

AI basics for recruiters

What AI is, how it works, and the words you will hear in every vendor demo.

  1. What is AI in recruiting?
  2. What is a large language model, and what does it get wrong?
  3. Chatbot vs copilot vs AI agent: what is the difference?
  4. How do you write AI prompts for recruiting?
  5. How does AI connect to your recruiting tools?
Module 2

Finding candidates with AI

Sourcing, search, contact data and outreach, with and without AI.

  1. What is AI sourcing?
  2. Semantic search vs Boolean search: what changed?
  3. What is contact data enrichment?
  4. How does AI rediscover candidates already in your database?
  5. How do you personalize outreach with AI without landing in spam?
Module 3

Screening and interviewing with AI

Resume screening, AI interviewers, note takers, scheduling and fraud.

  1. What is AI resume screening?
  2. What is an AI interviewer?
  3. What does an AI note taker do in an interview?
  4. How does AI interview scheduling work?
  5. What is candidate fraud, and how do you spot a deepfake?
Module 4

Risk, law and fairness

Bias, audits, hiring laws, candidate notice and data privacy.

  1. How does bias get into AI hiring tools?
  2. What is an AI bias audit?
  3. Which AI hiring laws apply to you?
  4. What should you tell candidates about AI?
  5. What candidate data can you put into ChatGPT?
Module 5

Putting AI to work

Agents, buying decisions, ROI, automation and your own stack.

  1. What can AI recruiting agents do today?
  2. How do you evaluate an AI recruiting tool?
  3. How do you measure the ROI of AI in recruiting?
  4. How do you automate a recruiting workflow?
  5. How do you build an AI recruiting stack on a small budget?
Module 6

AI across the recruiting desk

Intake, job ads, candidate chatbots, references, offers and winning new clients.

  1. How can AI help with hiring manager intake meetings?
  2. How do you write job descriptions and job ads with AI?
  3. What is a recruiting chatbot, and does it help candidates?
  4. How does AI help with reference checks and job offers?
  5. How do agency recruiters use AI to win new clients?

Why we built it

AI is arriving in recruiting faster than training for it. SHRM’s State of AI in HR 2026 found that recruiting is the HR function where AI use is most common, yet 57% of HR professionals in states with AI employment rules were not aware of those rules. Recruiters are being handed tools without the background to judge them. The Academy is that background.

Work Insiders tracks hundreds of recruiting and HR tools, and we do not sell rankings. The lessons link to categories, not to paid placements.

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