“New skills-first platform lets employers see candidate work before CVs, using behavioural engagement signals to surface genuine effort”
LONDON, UK. April 28th, 2026 – FirstLook, a new hiring platform, has launched to address the growing crisis of AI-generated job applications flooding employer inboxes.
The platform requires candidates to complete a short skill assessment before their CV becomes visible, while tracking behavioural signals during the process to produce an authenticity score for each submission.
Applications per hire have nearly tripled since 2021, according to Ashby’s 2025 Talent Trends Report, and 75% of job seekers now use AI tools to write their applications, per Greenhouse’s November 2025 research. The result is that recruiters spend an average of 23 hours screening per hire, often unable to distinguish genuine candidates from mass-applicants submitting AI-generated content.
FirstLook’s approach inverts the traditional hiring process. Instead of reviewing CVs first and testing skills later, employers create a single assessment question that candidates answer before anything else. During the assessment, FirstLook captures behavioural engagement signals to generate a process score – measuring how the work was done, not what was submitted. Candidates are then ranked by engagement, helping recruiters prioritise the review of those who demonstrated genuine effort. The quality of the work itself remains a human judgement.
“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.”
FirstLook differs from existing assessment tools in one important respect: it does not use AI to score or rank candidate quality. Every submission is stored and reviewable by the employer. No candidate is automatically rejected without a human making that decision. Candidates are informed that behavioural data is collected. Scores are used to help employers prioritise their review queue – no candidate is auto-rejected, and scores are never visible to applicants.
The platform launches with two assessment formats – written response and code challenge – with audio and video assessments to follow.
Pricing starts with a free tier for one active role. Paid options include a one-off pay-per-role at £49, a Starter plan at £79 per month for five active roles, and a Professional plan at £199 per month for 20. All plans include the full feature set with no feature gating.
ENDS