Shanique Miller has been job hunting for the past year, sending hundreds of applications in the hope of securing her big break in publishing or media.
In that time, she’s secured four interviews – for a publishing company, a gardening magazine, and a coffee chain – and three of them were with AI bots.
The interview experiences left Miller feeling like “a deer in the headlights”, she says. Because she knows how AI vets interview transcripts, she found herself adapting her personality and natural way of speaking to meet the formulaic questions delivered, essentially, by a robot.
“To know that AI is looking over those videos and saying you’ve paused too many times, you hesitated, you stuttered, you’re not using optimal keywords – it’s like I now have to kind of be robotic in order to get the AI’s validation,” says Miller, 25, from Slough.
What further deflates Miller is the idea of being struck off by AI, when a human would give her a chance.
“A real person can understand intention, and they can read your body language and tone. So if AI has said: ‘This person scored low,’ does that just mean I’m immediately in the ‘no’ pile, and there’s no human who can say: ‘Actually, maybe there’s something here?'” she questions.
She is doing her best to stay positive – taking an unpaid role at a community journalism site – but can’t help thinking about the double standards of being told to tailor all job applications, only to end up in an automated review system.
She is heartened by Andy Burnham’s recent statement that AI interviews are unfair on young people. Some 47 per cent of UK job seekers have now been interviewed by an AI, according to hiring platform Greenhouse. Employers are intent on using the technology to save time and money, with 83 per cent now using AI to speed up hiring, according to CV Library. That’s even though 35 per cent fear they are missing out on top talent due to a lack of human intuition when AI is used in the process, and 27 per cent admit AI filters out strong applications before they’re even selected for an interview.
‘A real person can understand intention, and they can read your body language and tone,’ says Shanique MillerCase study for young people job hunting‘I’m saying buzzwords that I have never used‘
AI recruitment is also proving frustrating for applicants. Having applied for hundreds of jobs in the past five months, Coel Dyckhoff withdrew from one after the AI interviewer requested access to his camera and to keep his image on its records. He’s had five AI interviews altogether.
“I am very concerned about internet safety and data protection, so this rang alarm bells in my head instantly. I immediately ‘force quit’ the website and withdrew my application from consideration,” says Dyckhoff, 24, based in South Wales.
Looking for roles in IT and audio engineering, Dyckhoff finds the tech behind AI interviews glitchy.
“The process itself is quite jarring. The AI attempts to ‘talk’ to you in an uncanny text-to-speech voice. When the AI stops speaking, there’s this eerie silence where you’re not sure when to speak since there’s no human on the other side to bounce off,” he says.
“My worst AI interview experience happened when the AI kept interrupting me while I was speaking, and I had to keep my answers short to keep it from freaking out. Anytime I would want to explain a certain thing more, I would be cut off by a ‘thank you, your answer has been noted’, and I couldn’t force the AI to go back to the previous question.”
Like Shanique, he says he ends up adapting his real demeanour to fit the format of the AI interview.
“I find myself using buzzwords that I have never used in a professional or casual setting, to satisfy the algorithm of the AI to possibly send me to the next step of the hiring process. My usual cadence of speaking is thrown off because I’m not talking to a human being and I can’t gauge their interest or disinterest in a certain topic,” he says.
How to beat the bots
But are AI job interviews a necessary evil that today’s jobseekers just have to put up with?
Youth careers coach Sandra Davis confirms it largely is – although they’re more common in larger employers than smaller. Davis is a former teacher who now runs OneBigNext, a consultancy which helps young people secure apprenticeships, degree apprenticeships or early-career roles. She says she’s prepping all her clients who are applying for degree apprenticeships on how to succeed in AI interviews.
Youth careers coach Sandra Davis is supplying her clients with the tools and knowledge for AI interviews (Photo: Sandra Davis)While she acknowledges the downfall of the technology – that AI video interviews may be inadvertently screening out people with the great human skills that would benefit companies – she knows how human candidates can impress the robot. The trick, she says, is to give answers that are concise, clear and structured.
“AI video interviews reward concise, clear, and structured answers, and thus reward candidates who prepare well for competency-based interviews using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) framework,” says Davis.
On one hand, Davis argues this makes it a straightforward technique to coach people in. For those who come out of their shell when they engage directly with another person – and those who find it difficult to speak concisely – she acknowledges they may struggle to prove themselves.
“AI video interviews are most effective at screening candidates for roles in which companies value a conscientious attitude to preparation, and clear and structured thinking,” Davis explains. “AI video interviews can be less effective at identifying the best candidates for roles in which interpersonal skills are fundamental.”
Former corporate recruiter turned careers coach Hannah Salton says she’s seeing a lot of anxiety and uncertainty in her clients about AI being used in recruitment processes. Her top tip is to spend time really getting to know yourself before the interview – your strengths, your values, and what you’ve actually done in your work experience.
Before interviews, you have really get to know yourself before the interview, says career coach Hannah Salton“Practise talking about all of these out loud in general terms, just to get used to the sound of your own voice, rather than rehearsing specific answers to specific questions,” advises Salton.
The growing prevalence of AI generally has put Cara Nolan off the marketing career she was initially pursuing. The history graduate, 22, is now about to start a Masters in broadcast journalism after applying for around 100 jobs, to no avail. She progressed to final stages five times, and had one AI interview which she says she “hated”.
“To myself and many of my peers, seeing the introduction of AI into an already disheartening job hunting process, when it’s already a factor in making the job search so arduous, is very frustrating,” says Cara. “I would rather work and collaborate alongside other people than ChatGPT.”
Coel Dyckhoff feels equally disillusioned, and describes the use of AI interviews as a “spit in the face” of people who are unemployed.
“I want to meet the people I’m going to work with. I want to use my people skills to show I’ll be a good fit into the office culture,” he says. “But I cannot do that with an AI. AI Interviews feel like a massive robotic wall that is meant to keep us out of the workplace.”
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