AI job interviews spark global backlash as candidates push back
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — Job-seekers are encountering a new kind of interviewer, and many aren’t impressed. As HR departments turn to artificial intelligence to screen candidates, more job interviews are being conducted entirely by bots.
While employers praise the technology for helping manage thousands of applications, candidates are pushing back, calling it impersonal, disheartening, and even a red flag for company culture.
Job seekers decry impersonal AI interview experience
Debra Borchardt, a seasoned writer and editor, described her reaction after being interviewed by a bot: “Within minutes, I was like, ‘I don’t like this. This is awful.’” She ended the interview after just a few questions, calling the process “an added indignity.”
Borchardt explained, “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.”
Technical writer Allen Rausch was equally unsettled, describing his encounters with woman-like cartoon bots that simply recited his résumé and failed to answer questions about company culture.
“Given the percentage of responses that I’m getting to just basic applications, I think a lot of AI interviews are wasting my time,” Rausch said. He would only reconsider participating if there were a clear guarantee of human interaction later in the process.
Other candidates, like UK professional Alex Cobb, view AI interviews as red flags for company culture. “If I know… I will be using AI interviewing, I will just not waste my time, because I feel like it’s a cost-saving exercise more than anything,” Cobb noted.
He worries that such technology signals a company that might devalue employees or cut more jobs in the future.
Employers cite efficiency as AI transforms hiring
Despite the candidate pushback, overwhelmed HR professionals see AI interviewers as a lifeline. “They’re becoming more common in early-stage screening because they can streamline high-volume hiring,” said Priya Rathod, workplace trends editor at Indeed. For entry-level and customer-facing roles, in particular, the technology is quickly becoming the norm.
Adam Jackson, CEO of Braintrust, a company that supplies AI interviewers, argues that most job-seekers ultimately accept the trend: “The truth is, if you want a job, you’re gonna go through this thing… And we’re just not seeing [widespread rejection of the tool].”
While AI may excel at assessing baseline skills, Jackson admits it is ill-suited for evaluating cultural fit: “AI is good at objective skill assessment—I would say even better than humans. But [when it comes to] cultural fit, I wouldn’t even try to have AI do that.”
AI interviews to stay despite global resistance
As companies balance efficiency with candidate experience, both sides seem destined for an uneasy coexistence with AI interviewers, at least for initial screening.
While some job seekers may choose to avoid conversing with robots, it seems that this practice is likely to persist.
