How Siemens Replaced CVs with AI Assessments — and Cut Time-to-Hire by 60%
When Siemens Energy & Automation dropped CVs from its hiring process entirely, the results defied every assumption about what technical recruitment can deliver: time-to-hire fell from 150 days to 60, gender diversity on shortlists hit 50/50, and every single hire stayed beyond 14 months. For HR leaders watching the EU AI Act compliance clock tick toward August 2026, this is the case study that matters.
The Problem: 150 Days and a Shrinking Talent Pool
Siemens Energy & Automation's UK operation faced a challenge familiar to most engineering employers. Hiring cycles stretched to 150 days. The talent pool was narrow — just 16.5% of UK engineers are women, according to industry data cited by UNLEASH — and traditional CV screening reinforced that imbalance by filtering for credentials rather than capability.
Jon Turner, Managing Director at Siemens, knew the process was unsustainable. The company needed to fill specialist technical roles faster without sacrificing quality. More importantly, it needed to find candidates the old system was missing entirely.
The Solution: CV-Blind, Assessment-First Hiring
Siemens partnered with Arctic Shores to pilot a CV-blind hiring process. Instead of screening resumes, every applicant completed a psychometric assessment measuring five core competencies: resilience, processing speed, planning, organization, and stakeholder management.
No degree requirements. No industry experience filters. No CVs at any stage of the initial screen.
The pilot attracted more than 500 applications for a single technical role — a volume that would have overwhelmed a traditional screening process but was handled efficiently through automated assessment scoring.
The Results: Four Numbers That Rewrite the Playbook
Time-to-hire: 150 days to 60 days. Turner described the impact directly: "Reduced my period of attraction down to nearly 60 days — that is an incredibly significant reduction" (UNLEASH). For a role class that typically takes five months to fill, cutting the cycle by more than half represents both a cost saving and a competitive advantage in a tight labor market.
Gender diversity: 50/50 shortlist split. Against a baseline of 16.5% female representation in UK engineering, the CV-blind process produced gender-balanced shortlists. Removing credential-based filters eliminated the structural bias embedded in traditional screening.
Retention: 100% at 14+ months. Every hire from the pilot remained with the company beyond 14 months. James Higgins, Operations Manager at Siemens Systems GB&I, noted: "The candidates were so strong. We found that we would struggle to pick who we would take forward" (Arctic Shores).
Background diversity: zero engineering degrees required. All hires came from non-engineering backgrounds — telecoms, finance, and retail. The assessment identified transferable competencies that CV screening would have filtered out in the first pass.
Why This Matters for Europe in 2026
Siemens is not an outlier. According to the Top Employers Institute 2025 report, 73% of top European organizations now use competency-first hiring practices. The same research found that skills-based employers are 7% less likely to lose high performers — a retention advantage that compounds over time.
The regulatory context adds urgency. The EU AI Act's high-risk hiring AI compliance deadline lands in August 2026. Any organization using AI in recruitment decisions needs to demonstrate transparency, human oversight, and bias mitigation. Siemens's approach — structured assessments with clear competency criteria — aligns with these requirements by design.
For companies still relying on CV-first funnels, the window to transition is narrowing. The combination of tighter regulation, proven ROI from skills-based hiring, and widening talent shortages makes this shift a practical priority, not an aspirational one.
How to Replicate This at Scale
Siemens ran its pilot with a specialist assessment provider and dedicated programme management. Most mid-market HR teams do not have that infrastructure. The question is whether the principles — AI-powered screening, competency-first ranking, CV-blind pipelines — can be operationalized without enterprise-scale budgets.
OVI offers one path. Its two-stage pipeline combines AI CV screening with voice interview shortlisting, starting at $99/month. The platform operates human-in-the-loop — AI provides decision-support while final hiring decisions remain with the recruiter. OVI does not use biometric analysis; voice assessment is transcript-content only, which meaningfully reduces automated employment decision tool (AEDT) exposure under emerging hiring AI regulations.
On compliance readiness, OVI is well-prepared for a startup at its price point: GDPR compliant with DPA and Standard Contractual Clauses for EU/UK candidates, with security practices aligned to SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 standards, and actively targeting EU AI Act governance readiness ahead of the August 2026 deadline.
What HR Teams Can Take from This
Drop the CV as the first filter. Siemens proved that competency assessments surface stronger, more diverse candidates than credential screening — and faster. Start by identifying which roles can be assessed on skills alone.
Measure what matters. The five competencies Siemens tested (resilience, processing speed, planning, organization, stakeholder management) are role-relevant and defensible. Map your own critical roles to measurable competencies before selecting assessment tools.
Plan for the EU AI Act now. With the August 2026 compliance deadline approaching, any AI tool in your hiring stack needs transparent scoring, human oversight, and documented bias mitigation. Audit your current tools against these requirements.
Budget realistically. Enterprise pilots like Siemens's require dedicated programme management. For teams without that overhead, platforms like OVI deliver AI-powered screening and shortlisting from $99/month with built-in compliance infrastructure.
How did Siemens reduce time-to-hire from 150 to 60 days?
Siemens partnered with Arctic Shores to replace CV screening with psychometric assessments measuring five competencies: resilience, processing speed, planning, organisation, and stakeholder management. This automated the first-pass screening and removed credential-based filters that were slowing the process.
What compliance requirements does skills-based hiring address for EU employers in 2026?
The EU AI Act high-risk hiring AI provisions require organisations to demonstrate transparency, human oversight, and bias mitigation when using AI in recruitment decisions by August 2026. Competency-based assessment frameworks with clear scoring criteria align with these requirements by design.
Can smaller companies replicate the Siemens skills-based hiring approach?
Yes. While Siemens ran its pilot with a specialist provider and dedicated programme management, AI-powered platforms like OVI offer CV screening and voice interview shortlisting from $99/month with built-in compliance infrastructure, making the approach accessible to mid-market teams.