Phone screens

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Phone screening is how a consultant checks an applicant by phone before putting them in front of a client. The consultant makes the call themselves using a question sheet inside the app, types or dictates each answer, and Lovelio suggests a score. Phone screening is included in the one Lovelio plan; without an active plan the phone screen options do not appear at all, and the actions refuse on every surface including Slack and the API.

There used to be an AI voice screen, where Lovelio sent the candidate a link and an AI agent interviewed them by voice. That was retired on 6 October 2026. Screens that were already taken keep their answers and scores on the record, but nothing sends a new one.

The screen wizard

The fastest way to log a call is the note box at the top of the wizard. Type or dictate what the candidate said, tap a prompt (Notice, Salary, Right to work, Availability, Motivation) to start a line, pick Yes, Maybe or No, and press Save note (or Cmd+Enter). No template and no questions. Yes logs the screen as Advance, Maybe as Hold and No as Reject, through the same draft path as chat and Slack: a note lands on the timeline, a call is recorded, and the stage moves as it does for those outcomes. Because the screen happened, a candidate at Yes moves on to Screen whether the outcome is Yes or Maybe, and any other stage stays put. No parks a candidate at No (the rejection email is sent later). Below the note box, the two cards still start a structured screen.

Clicking Screen on an applicant opens a short wizard. It asks where the questions come from: AI writes them fresh for this candidate (from the job, the AI assessment, and the client's DNA) or one of the forms attached to the Phone Screen row in Settings under Forms, copied verbatim - so different desks can keep different screens (tech, sales, temp) on that same row. The default from Settings is marked "(your default)" and sorts first, but the choice is made per screen, every time; there is no company-wide lock.

Every template row in the picker has a Preview button showing the actual questions with their answer type, weight (Critical, Important, or Nice to have) and required flag, before committing to it. The list also has a "Write a new one" row: it builds a brand new screening template right there, without going to Settings under Forms. The consultant speaks or types what the call must cover into one box (the microphone streams into the same text field, so typing works fine in a busy office), AI turns each point into a proper question with a proposed answer type, weight and required flag, and the consultant confirms every question one card at a time - keep it, change any of the three settings, edit the wording, or drop it. A review step shows the whole template so far and takes more questions through the same speak-or-type box, as many rounds as needed. Naming it saves it as a real screening template the whole team can pick from then on (editable later in Settings under Forms), and the screen runs from it immediately.

Backing out of a screen and opening it again asks the question afresh. Picking the same source again reuses the questions already prepared, instantly; picking a different one rewrites them. The wizard is skipped when there is work to protect: an answer already saved on the form. Then the screen opens on its current state and nothing is re-asked or wiped. Rewriting questions is refused outright once any answer has been saved.

The screening form

With "AI writes them" chosen, the questions are specific to that candidate and job, 6 to 8 in four buckets: two alignment questions (notice period, salary, location, hours, work rights, whichever look likeliest to be deal-breakers), two to three resume probes (verifying claims, gaps, depth on skills the job needs), two job-fit questions tied to the role's actual requirements, and one motivation question. Lovelio's AI assessment of the candidate is in the mix too: a clear doubt it flagged becomes a question that tests it, but the assessment is treated as a first take to verify, never as fact.
Questions are written about the client the job is for, never about the agency; the candidate is being screened for the client's role. For the agency's own internal hires, the agency is treated as the employer.
If the candidate record is too thin to generate from (no resume summary and no cover letter), the form asks the consultant for a short free-text brief of what the call should cover and generates from that instead, swapping resume probes for experience probes.
During the call, the consultant scores each answer 1 to 5 stars and can flag concerns. Typed answers can get an AI-suggested score with a short reasoning line; the consultant always has the final say. Each question has a microphone button for dictating the answer using the browser's built-in speech recognition.
Submitting computes a weighted 0-100 score that is saved to the application. The score is compared against the company's screening thresholds (advance at 70 or above, reject at 45 or below, by default; editable in Settings under workflow rules). A strong score shows a "Looks strong - worth submitting" hint; a weak one shows "Below your bar - consider parking". These are hints only; they never move a candidate on their own. Borderline scores show no hint.
Concerns travel forward: answers scored 1 or 2 stars feed into interview question generation later as flag probes, so the interview probes exactly what worried the screener.
Regenerating questions is available if the first set misses the mark, but only before any answer has been saved.

Screens already taken by voice

The answers and scores from old AI voice screens stay on the screening form and the score stays on the application. The call transcript is no longer shown in the app.
A scored screen also reads in full from the home page's deal file: the Screen step shows the scorecard - each question with its score out of ten and the candidate's answer word for word, plus the overall score. While the deal has not moved on, the verdict card also suggests the next moves - Submit to client, and Book interview - each button disappearing once its own step has started.

Logging a phone screen from chat, Slack, or the API

Outside the dashboard form, a phone screen is logged as a short draft: an outcome (Advance, Reject, Hold, or No show) plus required notes, with optional call time and duration. Confirming refuses until both outcome and notes are filled in. On confirm, one timeline note is written to the application (including call time and length if given). The outcome advances the candidate or marks them No. A Reject outcome moves any pre-client application to No; the rejection email is not sent from here, the consultant sends it separately, so rejections can be reviewed, edited, or bulk-actioned later. Advance and Hold move a Yes candidate to Screen (the screen happened). No show leaves the stage unchanged, and a candidate already with the client is never pulled back by a screen log.

Voice input elsewhere in the app

Hold the Space bar anywhere in the dashboard (when not typing in a field) to talk to Lovelio. Release to send; the transcript goes through the assistant exactly as if typed, including the same confirmation cards for actions. Taps under 300ms and pressing Escape discard the recording.
The search bar, assistant voice capture, and referee forms accept voice input transcribed server-side. The phone screen form's per-question dictation uses the browser's own speech recognition; in a browser without that support the microphone button does nothing.

Limits and edge cases

Phone screening does not appear without an active plan.
A submit that saves but then hits an error shows a retry message rather than losing the answers; reopening the form shows what saved.

Common questions

"Does a good score move the candidate forward automatically?" No. Completing a screen on a Yes candidate records them at the Screen stage, but the score itself only produces a hint - submitting to the client or parking is always the consultant's action.
"Can Lovelio phone or interview the candidate for me?" No. The AI voice screen was retired. Lovelio writes the questions and scores the answers; the consultant makes the call.
"Where do I change the advance and reject score thresholds?" Settings, in the workflow rules section.