How Idonara works
Friendly on the surface. Seriously clever underneath.
Idonara runs the whole of hiring: attract, shortlist, interview, offer, onboard. Here’s what’s actually happening under that simple surface, and why your shortlists come out sharper, fairer, and explainable every time. The AI does the heavy reading and matching; you make every decision that counts.
Reading every CV
From a document to a complete picture of a person.
A CV is messy. People describe the same job five different ways, bury their best work on page two, and leave gaps a quick skim misreads. Idonara reads each one in real depth (work history, skills, qualifications, education, career progression, and the gaps in between) and turns that document into a rich, structured picture of the whole person.
That picture is what everything else is built on. Because Idonara understands a candidate properly, it can compare them fairly, surface them for the right roles, and show you why, instead of guessing from keywords.
- A comprehensive candidate view, not a keyword scrape, but an organised understanding of what someone has actually done.
- Clean, dependable data: structured consistently, so what you search and compare you can trust.
- No duplicate clutter: upload an updated CV and it’s recognised and merged into one record, with the history kept so you can see what changed.
Good to know: Idonara reads standard digital CVs (Word, PDF), not scans or photos, and takes a few minutes per CV to do it properly.
A comprehensive candidate view: work history, skills, qualifications, education and career progression, organised so you can trust it.
Understanding skills
“JS” is JavaScript. A “company secretary” may be your governance lead. Idonara knows the difference.
This is where most keyword tools fall down and good candidates get lost. Idonara doesn’t just look for exact words. It understands skills and competencies the way an experienced recruiter does:
- Like-for-like skills detection. It knows that related skills belong together, that abbreviations and full terms mean the same thing, and that two differently-worded CVs can describe the same capability, so strong candidates aren’t rejected over vocabulary.
- Competency mapping, not keyword bingo. It recognises equivalent and adjacent skills, and can show you where a candidate has gaps, at a glance.
- Recent skills count for more. A skill someone used last year weighs more heavily than one they last touched a decade ago, so you’re looking at genuinely current capability, not a stale buzzword from 2014.
The payoff: the brilliant candidate who called it the wrong thing still surfaces.
Like-for-like skills detection means the brilliant candidate who called it the wrong thing still surfaces.
Matching that predicts fit
One ranking you can stand behind, built from five kinds of understanding.
Most tools rank on keywords alone. Idonara weighs each candidate across five dimensions that actually predict whether someone will succeed in a role, then combines them into a single, defensible ranking, with the reasoning attached.
Role & seniority fit
Is this the right kind of role, at the right level, for them?
Skills match
Do they have the capabilities the role needs, weighted so current skills count for more than ones they last used a decade ago?
Meaning, not just words
It reads the intent behind a CV and a job description, so it spots a genuine match even when the wording is different.
Exact keywords
When a specific term, certification or membership really matters, it still counts.
Location & commute
Built for the UK: real regions, cities, realistic commutes, plus remote and hybrid.
It understands equivalent skills
The like-for-like detection runs underneath the match, so a candidate who phrased it differently (or has an adjacent, equivalent skill) still surfaces instead of being filtered out on vocabulary.
You can search in plain English
Type what you want the way you’d say it (“senior marine engineer, hydraulics, 12+ years, chartered”) and Idonara understands the experience levels, must-have skills, certifications and memberships inside it.
And then it shows its working
Every candidate comes with a clear, plain-English explanation of why they ranked where they did, so recruiters, hiring managers and auditors can all follow the logic. No black box.
Tune it to the role
Simple sliders let you decide how much each dimension matters for a given job: weight skills more heavily for one role, location for another.
Search your pool, or rank your applicants
When no one has applied yet, Idonara searches your whole talent pool to find people. When applicants exist, it ranks them. Automatically.
Assessing fairly
Sharper decisions, with the evidence beside them.
For each candidate you get a clear fit assessment: an overall view with their strengths, their gaps, a recommendation, and suggested areas to explore at interview. Several specialist checks run together in one pass to build a rounded, multi-angle picture.
And the fairness evidence is built as you go, not reconstructed afterwards:
- See what a filter would cost you, before you apply it. Set a hard requirement such as a minimum number of years of experience, and Idonara shows how the surviving shortlist compares with the full applicant pool, one criterion at a time. If it shifts the balance materially you are asked to record why, and shown other strong candidates worth a look.
- Rates by stage, on demand. Shortlisting and interview rates by protected characteristic, with small numbers suppressed and intersections included, so the answer to "why was this candidate not shortlisted?" is a query rather than an archaeology project.
- Wording checked before the advert goes out. It flags language that may put people off, by gender, age and more, and suggests better alternatives.
- You stay in charge. No decision is ever made by AI alone. A recruiter always reviews, and any candidate can ask for a human review.
Every score shows its evidence. A person makes every decision that matters.
Running the whole process
One consistent process, less manual chasing.
From advert to offer to first day, Idonara keeps everything, and everyone, moving.
It runs the process so nothing, and no one, stalls
Design how each role flows from advert to offer and Idonara keeps it moving: automatic reminders, deadline alerts and escalations; multi-team approvals routed across HR, finance and the hiring department with panel feedback in one place; and clear analytics showing where roles slow down and what they cost.
It reaches the right people, and brings the good ones back
Write a stronger advert in minutes and post to multiple job boards from one place. Send a personal, single-use invite or a shareable campaign link, and track each one by channel, role and recruiter. Reach candidates by email and SMS with quiet hours respected, and run nurture sequences that adapt to how people respond. Opt-outs and one-click unsubscribe are built in.
It books interviews without the email tennis
Idonara finds the best slot across the whole panel, syncs everyone’s calendars, creates the video-call link automatically, and lets candidates book themselves in with no login. References get handled too: referees complete a guided reference through a secure link, no account and far less chasing.
It closes the offer and starts people well
Build an offer backed by salary benchmarks, track each round of negotiation side by side, route it for approval, and let your candidate accept online with their offer letter generated for them. Then onboarding takes over: plans, checklists, an onboarding assistant and a simple portal. Right to Work is AI-assisted document checking, with a person making the call.
Underneath it all
Clever where it helps. Human where it matters. Secure all the way down.
The AI does the heavy lifting (the reading, matching, scheduling and chasing), but you make every decision that affects someone’s future, and candidates can always ask for a human review. Your data lives in its own sealed space, stays in the UK, and is protected to the standards banks and governments expect.
You make every decision that affects someone’s future, and any candidate can ask for a human review.
Questions
The bits people ask about most
Does the AI make hiring decisions?
What kind of CVs can Idonara read?
How does Idonara rank candidates?
How does Idonara keep shortlisting fair?
Can Idonara handle right-to-work and criminal-record checks?
The best way to understand it is to watch it work on your own role.
Give us one live vacancy. In about half an hour, we’ll show you the shortlist (the real people, the five-dimensional reasoning, and the fairness view) on your own candidates.