The same idea, one types and one talks
HeyMilo and Prelim start from the same premise: the first-round screen does not need a human. Instead of a recruiter running fifteen-minute calls, an AI holds the conversation, adapts its questions to what the candidate says, and hands back a scored result. That is genuinely the same category, and it is what makes this comparison different from the Willo comparison, where the competitor just records fixed video prompts. HeyMilo's AI actually converses. So does Prelim's.
The split is the medium. HeyMilo's AI talks to the candidate by voice. Prelim's AI runs a text conversation the candidate finishes by typing. That one choice decides who completes the screen, when they complete it, what setup you do, and what signal you get back.
What HeyMilo actually is
HeyMilo is an AI voice interview agent. It connects with your candidates, conducts a two-way conversational screening interview by voice, asks adaptive follow-up questions based on the answers it hears, and then scores and ranks candidates for your team to review. It integrates with applicant tracking systems and is aimed at recruiting teams running real volume. The pitch is a recruiter-quality conversation, automated and run at scale.
For the right role, that is a strong product. An adaptive voice conversation can probe deeper than a fixed prompt, and you get to hear the candidate, which a transcript will never give you. If hearing the person is part of the decision, HeyMilo is doing something a text screen does not try to do.
What Prelim does instead
Prelim runs the same kind of adaptive AI conversation, in text. Paste a job description, and the AI generates a role-specific screening interview: the certifications the role needs, the shift availability you require, the scenarios the person will actually face. The candidate answers in their own words, in a text conversation on any phone browser, on their own time. You get a scored transcript with a strong-yes / yes / maybe / no recommendation.
No call to place, no quiet room to find, no app to install, no demo to book. Free to start, live in minutes. The bet is that for high-volume hourly hiring, the medium that matches how candidates actually job-search will out-screen the medium that sounds more impressive in a sales deck.
The deciding question: will your candidates talk to an AI
This is the whole comparison, so be honest about which side your roles fall on.
A voice screen depends on the candidate being somewhere they can speak, out loud, to an AI, without background noise wrecking the recording. That is a fine assumption for a salaried candidate at a desk. It is a bad assumption for the workforce we serve. A CNA is on the floor for an eight-hour shift. A warehouse associate keeps a phone in a locker. A CDL driver is mid-route. When they finally get five minutes to apply, they are in a break room, on a bus, or in a parking lot, none of which is a quiet place to hold a spoken conversation with a bot.
Text does not ask for any of that. An asynchronous text screen waits in the browser until the candidate has a moment, and a moment is all it takes. They can answer between tasks, with noise all around, without finding privacy. That is why text-based screening tends to complete at 60 to 80 percent for hourly roles, while any screen that needs the candidate to speak in a quiet place loses people who would have finished a text version. More on where applicants leak out in our note on candidate drop-off.
Voice adds signal, and noise
An AI voice screen gives you something text cannot: how the candidate sounds. Tone, warmth, how they handle a real-time conversation. For some roles that is exactly the signal you want, and we will get to those.
But voice also adds failure modes text does not have. Speech-to-text struggles with accents, with the break room, with the truck cab, with a kid in the background. A misheard answer becomes a wrong score, and a candidate gets penalized for their environment instead of their fit. For a mobile-first, often multilingual hourly workforce, that is a quiet source of bias you do not control. Text removes it. What the candidate typed is what gets scored, and the score does not change because the parking lot was loud.
Simpler to start, and free to try
HeyMilo is built for teams and is sold the way team tools usually are: a trial or a demo, then a paid plan. Setting up a voice agent means configuring the interviewer, the questions, and the flow before you can run anyone.
Prelim is self-serve from the first click. Sign up, paste a job description, share a link, and you are screening. There is no demo to schedule to learn the price, no agent to configure, no script to record. The free tier exists so you can run real candidates through a real screen before you decide anything. The same logic that makes Prelim a lighter pick than enterprise suites like HireVue applies here at a smaller scale: less to set up, less to commit to, faster to a scored shortlist.
Where HeyMilo is genuinely better
Be clear about where voice wins, because it clearly does for some hiring.
The job is voice. For a phone-sales rep, a call center agent, a dispatcher, or a front-desk role, how the candidate sounds is not a proxy for the job. It is the job. A text screen confirms they can answer the qualifying questions; it will not tell you they can hold a warm, clear conversation with an upset customer. For those roles, an AI voice interview tests the actual medium, and that is a real advantage. Our customer service screening template is a good text first-filter, but for a pure voice role you should keep a spoken step.
You want to hear the candidate. When verbal delivery is part of the evaluation, a voice conversation captures something a transcript flattens. Prelim is text-only and does not try to compete on that signal.
Live and multilingual voice at scale. If you want a live option, or conversational voice screening across many languages, that is squarely what a voice agent is built for. Prelim is async and English-first.
Where Prelim wins
Text matches how hourly candidates job-search. They apply from their phones, in noisy places, on their own time. A text screening interview fits that reality; a spoken AI conversation fights it. For senior living, warehouse and logistics, trucking, and food service, text completes far more often, and completion is the size of your funnel.
Nothing to configure, nothing to install. Paste a job description and the screen is generated in seconds. No agent setup, no script, no app on the candidate's phone, just a link in any browser.
Fairer scoring on a diverse pool. No audio means no accent penalty and no noise penalty. For a workforce where both are common, that is a real accuracy gain, not a nicety.
Free and self-serve. Start today, run real candidates this week, and decide based on what you see, not a sales call.
You can use both
These are not mutually exclusive. For a role where voice genuinely matters but volume is high, the efficient sequence is to use a text screen as the first filter, confirming qualifications, availability, and fit, then put the short list that clears that bar through a voice step where delivery is the thing you are grading. Screen the two hundred on text, hear the ten on voice. That respects both candidate time and yours.
Which one fits you
Pick HeyMilo when the role is voice work, when verbal delivery is what you are grading, or when your candidates have a quiet place to speak and would rather talk than type. It runs a capable adaptive voice conversation and it does that job well.
Pick Prelim when you hire hourly or high-volume, when candidates screen from their phones in places they cannot take a call, and when completion on mobile is your real constraint. The same logic that makes text beat async video and AI phone calls applies to AI voice agents, for the same reason: lower friction, higher completion, more candidates actually screened. Start free, paste a job description, and share the link: create an account. We have ready-built screens for most hourly roles, including warehouse associate, CDL driver, and CNA. Browse the full templates library to match your highest-volume opening.