Our commitment
Consonia was built to support recruiters in seeing candidates with greater attention — not to replace human judgement, not to score, not to filter. These are the principles that guide every decision about how this tool works, what it asks of its users, and what it refuses to do.
01
Consonia generates evidence — not decisions. Every reading produced by the system is a piece of structured attention, traced back to a verbatim passage from a real interview. No score. No ranking. No automatic shortlist. The recruiter remains the only person who decides who is hired and who is not. This is not a stance against AI. It is a stance against pretending AI can carry a responsibility that belongs to a person.
02
Every interview contains a person who placed their trust in the recruiter. That person — often not present in the room where the evaluation happens — deserves protection. This holds for candidates and, equally, for the team members interviewed to build the grid. We require that both be informed, in advance, that AI is used and that the interview is recorded. We provide model notices you can use. We strongly recommend that interview transcripts be anonymised before upload. The dignity of the person being listened to is not a footnote.
03
We do not use uploaded transcripts to train AI models — neither ours nor third parties'. Audio submitted for transcription is processed in real time and not stored beyond the duration of the API call. Text transcripts and AI-generated readings live in your account, encrypted, accessible only to you. If any of this changes, we will tell you before it takes effect.
04
Many tools that claim to optimise for "culture fit" are actually optimising for sameness — quietly filtering out the candidates who don't look or talk like the existing team. Consonia is built to do the opposite. Every parameter in the cultural grid can be marked as either an alignment requirement (where fit matters) or a complementarity opportunity (where difference is a gift). The recruiter decides which is which. The tool does not assume sameness is the goal.
05
An artificial intelligence system cannot perceive a candidate's silence, cannot feel the weight of context, cannot know what a particular hesitation means. It can recognise patterns of language and value across a transcript — and it does so with rigour. But an interview is more than a transcript, and a person is more than the words they choose under pressure. Using Consonia with awareness means knowing what it can offer and where it ends. We do not pretend otherwise.
How the engine works
The EU AI Act gives a candidate the right to a meaningful explanation of how AI contributed to their assessment. This is ours, in plain language. The engine performs two operations — it extracts the grid from the team, then reads candidates against that grid — and neither is a verdict. Here is what happens, step by step.
The AI reads the team interview transcripts, together with the context and job description you provided. It does not apply a predefined list of "right" traits: it surfaces the parameters that recur across these conversations — the values, language, and tensions the team actually expresses. Every proposed parameter is anchored to a verbatim passage: you can see exactly which words, in which interview, produced it. And nothing is final until you validate it: you edit, remove, rename, and tag each parameter as alignment or complementarity. The grid the tool uses is the grid you approved.
For each parameter in your grid, the AI re-reads the candidate's transcript looking for evidence of consonance. It returns one of three states — evident, partial, not observed — never a number, never a rank. Every state is backed by the exact passage, in the candidate's own words, that supports it. If that passage isn't there, the state is "not observed": the tool does not infer beyond what was said. Every reading is traceable to its source — and you are free to disagree.
How we stay honest
Consonia's grid extraction and candidate readings are periodically audited for systematic bias. We sample anonymised cases across team contexts and demographic profiles, comparing AI output against independent human readings. Where systematic divergences emerge — particularly along protected characteristics — the underlying model and prompts are refined. Every revision is documented and versioned. This is not a marketing claim. It is a process.
Resource for recruiters
Required by EU AI Act — to be sent before the interview
Before we begin, we want to be clear about what happens to your words. This interview will be recorded and transcribed: as part of our selection process we use an AI-assisted tool that helps us listen to you more closely. From the transcript, the AI surfaces the themes that resonate — or do not — with the values, language, and ways of working of the team you might join. The AI returns evidence anchored in what you actually said: it assigns no scores, produces no ranking, and makes no decision. Every decision is made by the people on our hiring team, who read the AI's readings as one input among several. In fact, the AI addresses only a narrow, clearly bounded part of the assessment — resonance with the team — and does not determine its overall outcome: your skills, abilities, and professional experience are assessed separately, through other means and through the interviews you have already had or will have. The AI's contribution helps compose the fuller picture; it is not what decides whether you are hired. The recording is used solely to assess this position and is never used to train any AI system; the data controller is [Company], in accordance with the GDPR. At any time you may request that your application be reviewed by people only, without any involvement of AI, ask to see the readings produced from your interview, and access, correct, or request deletion of your data. If you are happy to proceed, please confirm before we start.
Notice for interviewed team members
To share before the interview with team members
We're hiring for [role] — someone who will work alongside you. Before we even look at candidates, we want to understand what this team is really made of: the values that hold it together, the language it speaks, the tensions that run through it. That's why we listen to the people inside it, and that's why we're listening to you. This conversation will be recorded and transcribed: from these interviews an AI-assisted tool surfaces a "grid" of cultural parameters — the values and ways of working that recur in your words — which becomes the lens through which we'll read candidates. One important point: your words are not used to assess you. There is no score, no judgement on your work; they serve to describe the team. Where possible we will use only your role, not your name. The recording is used solely for this search and is never used to train any AI system; the data controller is [Company], in accordance with the GDPR. You may see what is transcribed, request its correction or deletion, and you may decline to be recorded — in which case we'll gather your input another way. If you are happy to proceed, please confirm before we start.
For your own internal documentation
The recruiter commits to processing candidate interview content only for the purposes of evaluating the specific role for which the candidate has applied, and only with the candidate's prior informed consent. The recruiter retains final decision authority on all hiring outcomes. AI-generated readings are used as supporting evidence, never as determinative. The recruiter assumes full responsibility for compliance with applicable data protection law (GDPR), employment law, and the EU AI Act — including obligations of transparency, human oversight, and non-discrimination.
The two notices are templates, to be adapted to your specific recruiting context and reviewed by a legal professional before use; the internal clause is for your own records. Sending the notice in advance — to candidates and to interviewed team members alike — is a legal obligation (GDPR and the EU AI Act), not a courtesy.
Copied