A recruiter closes a role in Ashby and moves on to the next requisition. The candidates who made it to a final round but didn't get an offer stay wherever their job consideration left them. A similar role opens on a different team two quarters later, and nothing connects the two unless someone remembers a name.
This expert guide covers what tools Ashby offers for stored candidate databases once a new requisition opens. It also covers their limitations and how an external AI integration addresses those to automate rediscovery, sourcing, and scoring past qualified candidates.
What Is Talent Rediscovery?
Talent rediscovery is the process of finding candidates already stored in Ashby's ATS for newly opened roles. It includes applicants from closed jobs, those in the talent pool, and candidates who partially advanced in a hiring process.
By automatically matching these stored candidates to new positions, rediscovery turns past applications into an active sourcing channel, ensuring recruiters don’t have to remember names.
Does Ashby Provide Candidate Rediscovery?
No, Ashby doesn't offer a candidate rediscovery feature or any way to automatically source and rank past applicants for a newly opened job. Its AI-Assisted Search allows a recruiter to describe candidates in plain language. It then builds the search filters automatically, searching the entire candidate database.
Meanwhile, CRM filtering adds Boolean and advanced search operators for the same purpose. AI-Assisted Application Review evaluates individuals already in a specific job's pipeline based on criteria defined by the recruiter. It marks each candidate as either meeting or not meeting the bar, without providing a score or ranking.
None of these tools check the applicant history of a closed job against a newly opened role. AI-Assisted Search relies on a recruiter typing a description and reviewing the results themselves.
Application Review only evaluates candidates who have already applied to the specific job in question. There is no option to scope a database search by how long ago a candidate applied, and nothing automatically compares a past applicant's fit against a newly created requisition.
How to Rediscover Candidates in Ashby
Ashby has no built-in system to scan your candidate history against a newly opened job automatically. To address this, recruiting teams connect Skima AI to build that check directly into Ashby. Below is a 5-step workflow, from connecting the account to a finished shortlist:
Step 1: Connect Your Ashby Account With Skima AI
Create an API key inside Ashby Admin with candidatesRead, candidatesWrite, organizationRead, and apiKeysRead permissions. This connection uses Ashby's own REST API directly, with no middleware required.
- Read access: candidate records, application data, job requirements, resume attachments, and interview stage information
- Write access: application custom fields, candidate tags, and activity notes
- Pulled data: candidate contact details, resumes, application stage and source, job descriptions, and existing custom field values for scoring context
- Event triggers: application created or updated, candidate stage changed, attachment added, and candidate hired, delivered through Ashby's webhooks
Step 2: Configure Custom Fields and Confirm the Connection
Add the application custom fields Skima AI writes to, match score, reasons, and shortlist link, or let Skima AI create them automatically. Enable webhooks for the events listed in Step 1. If webhooks are not available, Skima AI falls back to a 10 to 15 minute polling interval using cursor-based pagination instead.
Before rolling this out further, test the connection on two or three roles. Upload a resume, confirm the Match Score and Reasons appear on the application, submit sample hiring manager feedback, and check that it logs as an activity note correctly.
Step 3: Launch Talent Rediscovery Against a Live Requisition
Open the job inside Skima AI, from the Jobs list or from within the job itself. Click the three-dot Actions menu and select Rediscover Candidates. A modal opens with options to narrow the scan: select a specific candidate segment, or leave it open to every synced Ashby record.
Set the candidate created date range next: All time, last 6 months, last 1 year, or a custom window, and optionally check the location filter to restrict the scan geographically. Click Apply. A "Performing Rediscovery" notification appears while the scan works in the background, and turns green with a refresh option once it completes.
Step 4: Review and Filter the Rediscovered Matches
Open the View Candidates tab to see a ranked list pulled from across the applicant history. Each candidate carries an AI match score and reason bullets explaining the fit. Filter by Industry, Work Mode, Experience Level, Notice Period, Location, and Salary Range.
Start broad and tighten the filters gradually. Narrowing too fast hides good candidates, including people who fit this requisition better than the one they originally applied to.
Step 5: Shortlist and Sync Feedback Back to Ashby
Build the shortlist from the ranked matches Skima AI surfaced. Generate a secure, no-login link and send it to the hiring manager. They click thumbs up, thumbs down, or maybe on each candidate, with an optional comment.
Skima AI writes that decision back into Ashby as an activity note on the application record. The feedback stays visible on the record without anyone opening a second tool.
What If Your Ashby Database Is Messy, Duplicated, or Stale
Ashby effectively prevents duplicate candidates by automatically matching names, email addresses, and social links like LinkedIn, GitHub, and Twitter. When a potential duplicate is identified, a Duplicate candidate button appears on both profiles. This feature highlights key differences and allows recruiters to compare resumes side by side, enabling them to decide whether to merge the records or confirm they belong to different individuals.
This detection does not check phone numbers as a matching signal, so two profiles sharing a phone number but different names, emails, and social links stay separate. Ashby also does not display duplicate flags for users added through an agency account, only for those added as employees on the organization's own team.
Skima AI extends the same idea across a wider set of signals. It matches first on email, phone, or LinkedIn URL, then checks name, location, and company together as a backup signal.
When a match surfaces, a field comparison modal displays differences across Name, Title, Company, Location, Email, Phone, and LinkedIn, tagging each mismatched field as Differs. A recruiter picks which values to keep and merges the records, or adds the profile as new if the two genuinely differ. Every resolved case logs under the Duplicates tab, split into In Database, From Uploads, and Resolved sub-tabs for later audit.
5 Benefits of Candidate Rediscovery with Skima AI in Ashby
A documented 30-day pilot with Ashby reported 5 specific changes once Skima AI starts scoring a company's stored candidate history:
- Faster Time-to-Screen: Rediscovered candidates arrive already matched and scored against the open role, reducing time-to-screen by 58% compared to starting a fresh search.
- Interviews Double From the Shortlist: The same pilot saw interviews booked from the shortlist double compared to the prior process.
- A Score Where None Existed: Every rediscovered candidate carries a 0 to 100 score with reason bullets, where Ashby's own search and review tools return a list or a Meets/Does Not Meet flag instead of a number.
- One Application Record, No New Login: Match scores, reasons, and tags write directly to the same application fields a recruiter already checks inside Ashby.
- A Feedback Loop Built for Rediscovery: Ashby's Candidate Reviews already lets managers score candidates a recruiter sends them. Skima AI extends that same kind of feedback specifically to rediscovered candidates, through a no-login link that lifted hiring manager satisfaction by 24 points on NPS in the same pilot.
5 Best Practices to Rediscover Talent in Ashby
A few habits decide whether this connection turns into a steady source of candidates or a one-time setup:
- Start With AI-Assisted Search: Use Ashby's natural-language search to catch obvious matches when building a first list. Move to a scoped Skima AI scan when a numeric score, a date-limited pool, or a tracked hiring manager decision matters.
- Automate Rediscovery on Job Creation: Skima AI's setting under Preferences and General starts a database scan the instant a new job gets created inside the connected account, so no requisition goes live without a first look at existing history.
- Reverse Search Across Teams: A fast-growing company often opens similar roles on different teams within months of each other. Reverse Search starts from one candidate's profile and returns every open job they match, ranked by score.
- Segment Scans by Candidate Created Date: Choose a 6-month or 1-year window when a role calls for someone recently active. Widen to all time for a niche or hard-to-fill role where the applicant pool has stayed thin for years.
- Add Phone Matching to Catch What Ashby Misses: Since Ashby's own duplicate check does not use phone number as a signal, reviewing the In Database sub-tab on a set schedule catches profiles that share a phone number but nothing else.
Is Candidate Rediscovery Worth It for Your Recruitment Team?
Ashby's AI-Assisted Search allows recruiters to query the entire database in plain language, enabling companies to see if their history yields strong candidates. However, it does not compare results by score or automatically check them against a job's specific requirements.
A company with years of closed roles in Ashby provides Skima AI a richer pool to score than one that started recently. A newer database returns a slimmer Rediscovered list, making the setup harder to justify early on.
Pilot Candidate Rediscovery in Ashby Now
For a company with a multi-year Ashby history, a pilot using Skima AI can deliver a high ROI. Start with two or three live requisitions, ideally roles the company has filled more than once before, so there is a real historical pool to score against.
Connect Skima AI to Ashby. Set up the application custom fields. Test the connection on two or three roles before going live. Skima AI's Ashby integration structures the rollout this way: first, test on a small sample. Then, go live on three pilot roles while tracking progress through weekly ROI emails and checkpoints at day 15 and day 30.
Track how many rediscovered candidates reach an interview and how the hiring manager responds to the shortlist link. Skima AI's documented 30-day pilot with Ashby showed a 58% drop in time-to-screen. Interviews from the shortlist doubled, and hiring manager satisfaction rose by 24 points on NPS. From there, expanding to more requisitions becomes a decision supported by the pilot's own numbers.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Does Ashby have a built-in talent rediscovery feature?
No, Ashby's AI-Assisted Search and CRM filtering help a recruiter query the whole database manually, and Application Review evaluates current applicants to a specific job, but nothing checks a closed job's applicant history against a role that just opened.
2. How do I rediscover candidates in Ashby?
Connect Skima AI to Ashby through its API, configure custom fields for Match Score and Reasons, then launch Talent Rediscovery on a live requisition. Skima AI scans your applicant history, ranks candidates, and syncs hiring manager feedback back automatically.
3. What are the benefits of candidate rediscovery in Ashby?
Based on a documented 30-day pilot, rediscovered candidates cut time-to-screen by 58% and doubled interviews from the shortlist. Matches carry an explainable score and reason bullets, and hiring manager satisfaction rose 24 points on NPS.
4. Is Skima AI safe to integrate with Ashby for talent rediscovery?
Yes, Skima AI scores candidates using resume-based evidence only, with no automatic rejections, and logs every hiring manager decision and shortlist action for audit. It works alongside Ashby's own fraud detection rather than replacing it, and data stays encrypted in transit and at rest under SOC 2 practices.
5. Is candidate rediscovery useful for Ashby's typical customers?
Yes, especially for fast-growing companies that open similar roles across different teams within months of each other. The value grows with the size of the closed-role history behind the account.
