AI Puts off Job-Seekers

Fortune reports that employers are starting to use AI for initial interviews, and that this is driving some job seekers away:

While Rausch withstood multiple AI interviews, Borchardt couldn't even sit through a single one. The 64-year-old editorial professional says things went downhill when the robotic interviewer simply ran through her résumé, asking her to repeat all of her work experiences at each company listed. The call was impersonal, irritating, and to Borchardt, quite lazy. She ended the interview in less than 10 minutes.

"After about the third question, I was like, 'I'm done.' I just clicked exit," she says. "I'm not going to sit here for 30 minutes and talk to a machine ... I don't want to work for a company if the HR person can't even spend the time to talk to me." [bold added]

The reaction is understandable, and rational up to a point.

The "interview" described above reminds me of online job applications that are little more than time-consuming exercises in cutting-and-pasting from the resume one is already sending in -- and which will presumably be parsed and dumped into a database already. Except, that since speaking is even slower, applicants stand to lose even more time providing information ... again.

On the other hand, the bots are a new technology, they're not all this bad, and they're saving hiring managers time, so they're likely to become the new normal.

Even so, job interviews -- even with AI -- are still conversations. As we see above, laziness or thoughtlessness can manifest in how the interviewer uses the technology. As frustrating as a lousy bot might be, take heart in knowing that the screening still happens both ways.

-- CAV