Recruitment in care has always been demanding. High application volumes, time‑poor hiring managers, and the need to balance speed with quality are nothing new. What is new is the scale and intensity of the challenge.

Candidate behaviour has shifted dramatically:

• One‑click applications make it easy to apply for dozens of roles in minutes
• AI‑assisted CVs are increasingly polished and hard to validate
• Many applicants either fail to meet the basic requirements or are unable to recall which role they applied for

As Greg Dunbar put it, it’s “never been easier – and never been harder – to find the best people.”

This leaves recruiters and hiring managers overwhelmed by volume, while still carrying the responsibility of making fair, high‑quality decisions that directly affect care outcomes.

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Christian shared important operational context from Ambea Sweden, an insight into how large, decentralised care organisations actually work:

• ~3,000 recruitments per year
• 100,000+ applications
• ~1,200 hiring managers across hundreds of care units
• 1 recruiter

Ambea’s model empowers highly capable hiring managers close to care delivery, rather than relying on a large central recruitment team. These managers balance staffing alongside responsibility for care quality, teams, families, and operations.

At this level of scale, the challenge becomes how to support those managers with the right tools, so recruitment remains high-quality without pulling focus away from care itself.

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Ambea piloted Hubert’s structured, skills-based AI screening in elderly care in Sweden.

The objective wasn’t to replace recruiters or managers - it was to reduce manual screening effort at the top of the funnel, so decision-makers could spend their time where it matters most.

Results included:

• Up to 74% reduction in screening time
• ~3 hours saved per recruitment process
• Faster time-to-hire
• More candidates receiving feedback
• Greater consistency across large applicant pools

Crucially, Ambea approached this cautiously and responsibly:

• starting with pilots
• training managers
• being transparent with candidates

Candidates who initially felt nervous about an AI-supported interview - later described it as clear, structured, and positive after being hired.

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Rowan Marriott brought a UK perspective and a powerful reminder that volume recruitment doesn’t just strain systems, it strains people.

Hiring managers didn’t become managers to sift CVs. Recruiters didn’t enter the profession to ghost candidates. Yet high volumes force behaviours nobody feels good about:

• Candidates becoming “numbers” instead of people
• Delayed or missing feedback
• Reactive, transactional processes replacing proactive talent engagement

Meanwhile, recruiter capability gets stuck in “ultra‑processing mode” - managing volume instead of building relationships, employer brand, or future pipelines.

The risk? When the market tightens again (and it will), organisations risk finding themselves unprepared.

AI is everywhere in recruitment - and that’s part of the problem. The panel agreed: the question isn’t whether to use AI, but how.

Concerns are real:

• Bias and fairness
• Explainability
• Candidate trust
• Regulatory compliance (including the EU AI Act)

Christian was unequivocal: Ambea would only adopt AI that could be trusted - ethically, legally, and operationally. That meant piloting carefully, involving their innovation team, and ensuring humans remained firmly in control of decisions.

As he put it, “This is about augmentation, not replacement.”

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A recurring theme was the declining value of the CV:

• Easily generated or enhanced by AI
• Often a poor predictor of job success
• Particularly weak for early‑career or entry‑level care roles

Structured interviews that focus on how candidates think and respond to real situations offer a far stronger signal, especially when designed around what success actually looks like in the role.

As Christian noted, this requires upfront work: defining success, capabilities, and behaviours clearly. AI doesn’t remove that responsibility - it makes it more important.

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• Don’t rely on CVs alone as an early filter
• Introduce structure early to assess intent and capability fairly
• Pilot new approaches before scaling
• Experience your own hiring process as a candidate
• Use AI to enable more human hiring, not less

This summary captures the highlights, but the full conversation goes deeper into:

• changing candidate behaviour
• supporting hiring managers sustainably
• what “responsible AI” actually looks like in practice
• how care organisations can modernise hiring without compromising trust

If you’re hiring frontline or high-volume roles in care, the full webinar is well worth your time. Watch on-demand here.