Can I match old applicants to a brand new job automatically?
Nicole Wilson
Workplace & Culture Writer
I’m a former recruiter turned writer, covering hiring, employer branding, culture, and workplace trends with practical insights that help HR leaders and CHROs simplify complexity and build stronger teams.
Yes, you can set up automatic candidate matching so every new job you create instantly scans your entire candidate database and surfaces the best fits from past applicants, with no manual search needed.
Most ATS platforms require a recruiter to open a search, type keywords, and evaluate results one by one. That works when you have 20 candidates. It breaks down fast when your database grows past a few hundred, and you are hiring for multiple roles.
Automatic candidate matching eliminates that bottleneck. When you create a new job, the system immediately checks every candidate you have ever uploaded against that job's specific requirements. It scores each person on skills, experience, and location relevance, then returns a ranked list.
Helpful tools like Skima AI offer a one-toggle setting for this. Navigate to Settings, then Preferences, then General, and turn on "Automatically Rediscover Candidates When a New Job is Created." From that point, every new job triggers a full database scan automatically.
You get a notification when the scan finishes, refresh the page, and see the matched candidates in the Rediscovered tab, already ranked by AI Matching Score with reasons explaining each match.
This also works in the other direction. Reverse search can automatically link a newly uploaded candidate to the most relevant open job. Toggle on "Automatically link the candidate to an appropriate job when a new candidate is uploaded" in the same settings panel, and the system matches and links every new resume you add to the best-fit open role instantly.
Between these two automations, new jobs find old candidates and new candidates find open jobs, without anyone doing a manual search.