New Delhi: As artificial intelligence becomes more ingrained in the hiring process across companies, a new interview trend is emerging in the US. Candidates are now scheduling job interviews at odd hours of the night, sometimes as late as 1 am. And at the other end, the questions are posed not by a human recruiter but by AI.
“I figured, I have to do this if I want to be considered for the job,” Atlanta-based marketing expert Tim Millard told WIRED. “What else was I going to do at 9:30 at night?”
After ‘video resumes’ in 2022, AI interviews are the next step in the evolution of the job application process. According to data from Ribbon, a company that makes voice-AI recruitment software, 24 per cent of the AI interviews conducted through its software take place between 10 pm and 2 am. The company collected this information from over 500 companies that use the service. In the manufacturing industry, WIRED reported, the figure jumps to 35 per cent.
“This is a genuinely new option for people,” said Arsham Ghahramani, co-founder of Ribbon. For many, tight working hours offer no window to apply for other jobs. “Some people are very constrained in their options of when they can interview and how they can interview.”
A bleak job market
Hiring platform, Greenhouse, said that roughly 15 to 20 per cent of candidates interviewed by its voice agent schedule an interview at night. For Ophir Samson, head of Greenhouse’s voice AI division, his tool is helping candidates stand out in a sea of resumes.
“Your résumé goes into a black hole. You’re competing with thousands of candidates that are all using AI to write their résumés. So, good candidates can’t stand out,” he said.
This doesn’t mean that candidates are thankful for an AI interview. Many applicants drop out of the process once they learn an AI agent will conduct their interview.
“Thirty-eight percent of American candidates told Greenhouse that they had withdrawn from a hiring process rather than be interviewed by an AI. Another 12 percent said they’d drop out if an AI interview was required,” read the WIRED report.
Many are uncertain about the metrics an AI model will use when giving them a score after the interview. For them, an AI interviewer is just the latest Black Mirror-esque addition to an already bleak job market.
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