November 2020. The I.A. is playing a new role in recruiting. By RACHEL WITHERS.

“Congratulations, you have been selected for an interview for the position of professional mini-player at the Open Mind Corporation,” announces a robotic voice over a blank screen. “My name is Alex. I will guide you in the interview. The whole process will not take more than 10 minutes. Let’s hear your voice. … Smile at the camera. … Welcome to the interview.”

This is the beginning of “Interview with Alex”, a dystopian interactive online experience that takes viewers to a “job interview” conducted by an AI hiring manager, one that measures the tone to score users on a ” Mental State Index “. Carrie Sijia Wang, the multimedia artist behind the project, writes that her work is intended to “critique the present by speculating about the future.” But you’re not that far off what your next job interview might be, if you’re applying for a high volume of low-skilled (or even some high-skilled) jobs. A growing number of real-life recruiters are turning to A.I.-led job interviews, using programs that interview and screen candidates before a human recruiter even sets eyes on them.

“Chances are, if you apply for the type of job that attracts a lot of applicants, you will be interviewed by an A.I. eventually”.

Alex won’t interview you, but it could be Hubert, or Ella, or Tengai, or Phai, or just automated words on a screen. Most bots aren’t running the decision-making process from start to finish (although they sometimes do – see Ryan Fan’s OneZero article “I got a job at an Amazon warehouse without speaking to a single human”) . Instead, recruiters generally use artificial intelligence at the “top of the funnel” to rank or rank candidates before they reach a still human stage. Like humans, these bot recruiters have their own unique interview styles. Some are only looking for logistical information, such as availability and ongoing interest, while others may be looking to assess drive, initiative, teamwork skills, adaptability, or even your tendency to jump from one job to another. Some will ask everyone the same set of questions in the same order, while others will tailor their questions to you, verifying that you can actually do the things that you say you can.

For many positions, each applicant receives an automatic link for the interview. Applicants are free to enter the “interview” on their own time, and there will often be practice questions that they can try before tackling the official questions. Some are text-based, while others require applicants to be videotaped. Questions, asked by a bot or a prerecorded message (or, in one case, by a disembodied head), are usually fairly common probes: Tell us about your previous experience, why are you interested in this company? But there is no human listening. Responses are recorded and analyzed by A.I., marking the candidate’s suitability on certain traits, before human recruiters use this analysis to decide who to invite for another interview or hire. By the time the answers are reviewed by a human (if at all), I.A. has already passed judgment.

Chances are, if you are applying for the type of job that attracts many applicants, you will eventually be interviewed by one. So often is the Fast Company running an article telling readers “4 Things You Must Do to Prepare for an A.I.-Powered Job Interview,” while LinkedIn publishes a free A.I. Interview Practice Tool. on video. And as much as the companies behind them tell me otherwise, you may not like it.

Artificial intelligence has played an increasingly important role in recruiting and hiring for some time, both as a time saver and as a matchmaker. The I.A. It has been used to generate job descriptions, to post and share jobs, to automate candidate searches, and to scan resumes and cover letters, leading some to hide white text keywords in their applications . Candidates may not have even realized this change, and perhaps for most of them it doesn’t make much difference whether a job is promoted by a faceless hiring manager or a faceless robot. But one thing is that I.A. “read” your resume and quite another is having to answer their questions.

These systems are being used by large companies, including Unilever, Vodafone, Intel, L’Oréal, Mars, and Citibank, to name just a few. Kevin Parker, CEO of Utah-based HireVue, one of the most prominent platforms in the space, tells me that one of the company’s clients, “a large supermarket chain in the United States,” used the platform to interview. about 20,000 people a day for warehouse and cashier jobs. But the I.A. they are also used for internships and professional positions, especially in the age of social distancing.

The initiators of these platforms are quick to point out their unique ability to improve efficiency and fairness, eliminating human biases and inconsistencies. The I.A. You can avoid many weaknesses of human interviewers: You are immune to charisma and distractions, you never get tired or irritated, and you will stick to the script, ensuring consistent interviews and meritocratic decisions. Furthermore, in this way, 20,000 candidates per day can be interviewed and evaluated by the same “interviewer”. While efficiency ranks high on these platforms’ websites (PredictiveHire has a free tool that calculates how much time and money automating interviews can save you), almost all of them make some mention of removing unconscious biases, to overcoming the preferences of society for certain races, genders, ages and appearances. But algorithms have often been found to reproduce human bias, especially if fed from human data sets, and that certain characteristics can be unfairly associated with recruitment. (In 2015, Amazon dropped an “experimental” AI recruiting tool, which analyzed resumes rather than interviews, because it discriminated against women for technical roles based on previously biased hires. It preferred the words “male” over female.) The recruiting companies of I.A. argue that, with the proper amount of data auditing, these biases can be extracted and eliminated. “We can see how the questions impact different groups,” says Parker of HireVue. “Do men score differently than women, do Asians score differently than Caucasians, are African Americans impacted differently? There is a whole series of statistical tests and analyzes that we do to make sure that the algorithms don’t introduce biases. “

Many of the companies behind these systems also market themselves for their “candidate experience.” While the hiring company is ultimately your true customer, A.I. they are well aware of the impact a bad interview experience can have on a company, especially one that wants to keep its unsuccessful candidates as clients, and use this as a selling point. Hubert + 1, a Swedish startup, notes that “11% of candidates with bad experiences will cut off all business relationships with the company in question” and boasts that their “Hubert”, on the other hand, provides “an experience of fit candidate for a king. ” (As if kings were showing up for jobs!) PredictiveHire, an Australian company that conducts I.A. via chat, she shares positive candidate reviews on her website. Parker says the HireVue Net Promoter Average Score, which measures whether the candidate had a good experience, is “somewhere between 60 and 70”; Hubert + 1’s website boasts 92 percent candidate satisfaction, PredictiveHire 99 percent. “And if I gave you access to any hundred interviews and asked you to watch them with the sound turned off, what you would probably see most often is people smiling,” says Parker.

But I wanted to know more about the people who have done one of these interviews and there are quite a few complaints about the online process. To be fair, these anecdotes may be biased: People who had perfectly good experiences are not likely to tweet about them. Yet it is clear that many find it difficult, disrespectful, and dehumanizing. Reddit is full of rants about HireVue, one of the most prominent platforms in the space, with posters calling it “the worst interview experience” or “a pure waste of time.” (Others use more colorful language.) Many say they will not take them again. “This is a difficult pass,” wrote one user.

Lauren, a 23-year-old college graduate who has been applying for jobs since May 2019, told me that landing one of these interview requests is not the same feeling as landing an actual interview. “You get the email and it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I got an interview!’ ” she says. “And then you realize it’s an A.I. thing and you’re like, ‘OK. I sigh. I guess we’ll do this and hopefully get a real interview.'”

“One wrong thing and the A.I. could kick you out … or something. I don’t know how they work.”

Part of the problem is that interviews with the bots create more work for applicants, asking even those who aren’t likely to be hired to invest the time. Jade, a recent college graduate looking for a job in retail, told me, “We have to do all this song and dance for AI, or a robot, or whatever before we talk to a real person, if that happens. . ” Aurora, a job-seeking friend of mine who worked in the tourism industry prior to COVID-19, says this addition takes “a lot of time.” Although it is done alone and from the comfort of your own home, for video interviews, you are encouraged to always look presentable, either because A.I. will judge now or a human reviewer will judge later. “You have to do your hair, makeup and clothes, and have a good background,” he says. “That makes it more exhausting, because you do it every other day, just to be seen on a screen in a professional way.” (When I pointed this out to A.I. firms, they were quick to argue the opposite: that this gives everyone a chance and allows applicants to complete interviews on demand at their convenience.)

Others saw a different problem in the A.I. from the initial fund: which is being used to eliminate people before the applications reach a human. “It’s almost like they’re trying to trip people up, that’s the feeling I get with a couple of them,” says Aurora. “That they were trying to get rid of people by making them have a certain kind of response.” Lauren also had the feeling that the I.A. I was waiting for her to make a mistake. “One wrong thing and the A.I. could kick you out … or something. I don’t know how they work.”

One person who does understand how they work is Kat, a 33-year-old software engineering student who was recently offered two different HireVue interviews in her search for an internship. She tweeted about her concerns as a dark-skinned black woman, because the I.A. perpetuates prejudices against people of color or does not acknowledge them at all. She says that most of those who responded to her viral tweet advised her to decline interviews, although several recruiters came forward to reassure her. “One of my peers on Twitter, who’s actually into ethics and A.I., and she was like, ‘This is … this is … how, no. Absolutely not,” she says. Kat did the interviews last, against the advice of most of her friends. What put her at ease, she says, was learning that not all recruiters who use HireVue to automate questions actually use the A.I. tool. to analyze the responses. (Some just use it to interview en masse, with human recruiters who keep watching and scoring.) But she was disappointed to later read the terms and conditions and realize that one of her interviews did use I.A’s analysis; you plan to decline it the next time you receive one. “I felt like they didn’t value me as a human,” she says. “It just makes me feel like a collection of data points.”

But even when responses are not analyzed by the A.I., the automated interview process was daunting for the candidates I spoke to. “Everything is one way,” says Kat. “I think a lot of these recruiters and companies forget that the hiring process is a conversation between two parties. When you have a recorded interview at an address, I can’t ask them questions.” She, along with many people I spoke to, says it’s a terrible first impression of a company. “If you don’t even try to invite me to a company presentation, meeting, or any kind of interaction before throwing myself into your, you know, hiring machine, then it’s a reflection of what your company culture is like.” Aurora, who hung up on an I.A. With questions that didn’t make sense, she says this job search has been more demoralizing than the last. “The robot really bothers me,” he says. “I feel like I need a job, but I’m waiting for one to be a real person interviewing me, to feel valued. I have a very clear idea of ​​my value, what I want to be paid, how I want to be treated, and not This is how I want to be treated. ” Lauren agreed: “It’s like you’re almost talking to a wall.” Not surprisingly, many of these automated hiring processes seem to be connected to the types of jobs that treat humans like machines anyway.

Parker acknowledges that the lack of natural flow can be difficult, but at least candidates have a chance to do reps, unlike in real life. Also, he adds, “We are not looking for movie stars here. This is not a screen test.” (Jade, however, described it as something that feels “like an audition roll.”)

This was, for me, the worst part of the mock interview HireVue sent me to try: an interview for a customer service rep with a made-up paper company. Although the questions were posed to me by bogus and cheerful company staff in pre-recorded messages, I felt completely alone, and was sitting in my bedroom trying to sell myself to I.A. Even though I was given 30 seconds to prepare before answering each question, it was difficult to give complete and engaging answers to anyone, and my mind would often go blank staring at the stopwatch or my own face. (This could be turned off, but the blank screen seemed even worse to me.) Plus, it was hard to calm my (very real) nerves without the niceties and the introduction and the little talk up front.

That lack of talk, Parker says, is actually one of the many advantages of these systems. “If we are going to hire for you, everyone is going to have the same experience, everyone is going to have the same questions,” he says. It erases the advantage that some applicants can connect with an interviewer based on the fact that they cheer on the same sports team or are from the same city, he says. There are other real benefits to the I.A. interviews as well, as explained by each and every CEO I spoke to. Interviews can be done on demand, without the need for scheduling, which means that those currently working in another job can interview without having to take time off. A typical Sunday for HireVue currently sees around 10,000 people interviewed, most on a mobile device. Many mentioned being able to make sure that all candidates actually listen, even the rejected ones. (Lauren says she never heard from her HireVue, even though it was just before the pandemic started.) There is also an opportunity to provide automated and personalized information to each candidate, something that PredictiveHire is proud of. The company’s chatbot, Phai, is able to create and share constructive “ideas” with a candidate almost immediately after an interview (“takes a logical and planned approach”, “has an independent mindset”), along with “advice from training “to work on certain attributes (” practice expressing your opinion “). CEO Barb Hyman wants to put this feature in the hands of students, and even those applying for jobs that are not being recruited by Phai.

And while many are concerned about the ability of these platforms to replicate the existing bias, others are excited about the ability to overcome it, if done right. There’s one group that both HireVue and PredictiveHire mentioned that they really enjoyed their interviews when surveyed: those in the twilight years of their careers.

After talking to many of these A.I. firms, I think some of them care about the candidate’s experience. HireVue has worked to improve your candidate experience based on feedback from 1.5 million candidates surveyed. PredictiveHire’s “hiring with heart” sounds pretty hollow, but Hyman and I talked at length about the need for humanity and empathy, especially now. “In a world of unemployment, how do you create some kind of dignity and some humanity when in reality, life is quite hard?” He said they avoided using video for this very reason.

But as much as these companies try to make the process easier for candidates, I.A. They exist because they are a savings measure for recruiters. Viktor Nordmark, co-founder of Hubert + 1 (with his “fit-for-a-king experience”), was quite frank when I asked him how he would respond to people who may feel undervalued by the process. “As companies you are always looking to make more money,” he said. “I think it is very difficult to change that basic principle.”

The fact that these automated interviews are economically sound doesn’t make them any less annoying for those who might be stuck doing them for months and years to come. Maybe this is something we all get used to, the way we have gotten used to the Zoom; maybe the grinning HireVue candidates are really having a lot of fun and not only are they desperately trying to please the dull artificial intelligence, but I’m still thinking of a scene from the Netflix improv show Middleditch and Schwartz. When comedians asked audience members to forage for their everyday lives to begin with, one offered up his I.A. The outraged horror of Thomas Middleditch said it all. “What the fuck is that?” He yelled. “That’s too bad!”

Future Tense is a partnership between Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.