When a Company Does Job Interviews with a Malfunctioning AI - and Then Rejects You (slate.com) 41
IBM laid off "a couple hundred" HR workers and replaced them with AI agents. "It's becoming a huge thing," says Mike Peditto, a Chicago-area consultant with 15 years of experience advising companies on hiring practices. He tells Slate "I do think we're heading to where this will be pretty commonplace."
Although A.I. job interviews have been happening since at least 2023, the trend has received a surge of attention in recent weeks thanks to several viral TikTok videos in which users share videos of their A.I. bots glitching. Although some of the videos were fakes posted by a creator whose bio warns that his content is "all satire," some are authentic — like that of Kendiana Colin, a 20-year-old student at Ohio State University who had to interact with an A.I. bot after she applied for a summer job at a stretching studio outside Columbus. In a clip she posted online earlier this month, Colin can be seen conducting a video interview with a smiling white brunette named Alex, who can't seem to stop saying the phrase "vertical-bar Pilates" in an endless loop...
Representatives at Apriora, the startup company founded in 2023 whose software Colin was forced to engage with, did not respond to a request for comment. But founder Aaron Wang told Forbes last year that the software allowed companies to screen more talent for less money... (Apriora's website claims that the technology can help companies "hire 87 percent faster" and "interview 93 percent cheaper," but it's not clear where those stats come from or what they actually mean.)
Colin (first interviewed by 404 Media) calls the experience dehumanizing — wondering why they were told dress professionally, since "They had me going the extra mile just to talk to a robot." And after the interview, the robot — and the company — then ghosted them with no future contact. "It was very disrespectful and a waste of time."
Houston resident Leo Humphries also "donned a suit and tie in anticipation for an interview" in which the virtual recruiter immediately got stuck repeating the same phrase. Although Humphries tried in vain to alert the bot that it was broken, the interview ended only when the A.I. program thanked him for "answering the questions" and offering "great information" — despite his not being able to provide a single response. In a subsequent video, Humphries said that within an hour he had received an email, addressed to someone else, that thanked him for sharing his "wonderful energy and personality" but let him know that the company would be moving forward with other candidates.
Representatives at Apriora, the startup company founded in 2023 whose software Colin was forced to engage with, did not respond to a request for comment. But founder Aaron Wang told Forbes last year that the software allowed companies to screen more talent for less money... (Apriora's website claims that the technology can help companies "hire 87 percent faster" and "interview 93 percent cheaper," but it's not clear where those stats come from or what they actually mean.)
Colin (first interviewed by 404 Media) calls the experience dehumanizing — wondering why they were told dress professionally, since "They had me going the extra mile just to talk to a robot." And after the interview, the robot — and the company — then ghosted them with no future contact. "It was very disrespectful and a waste of time."
Houston resident Leo Humphries also "donned a suit and tie in anticipation for an interview" in which the virtual recruiter immediately got stuck repeating the same phrase. Although Humphries tried in vain to alert the bot that it was broken, the interview ended only when the A.I. program thanked him for "answering the questions" and offering "great information" — despite his not being able to provide a single response. In a subsequent video, Humphries said that within an hour he had received an email, addressed to someone else, that thanked him for sharing his "wonderful energy and personality" but let him know that the company would be moving forward with other candidates.
Signs You Shouldn't be Applying There ... (Score:5, Insightful)
All of these applicants should be grateful! These companies just warned them, in no uncertain terms, that they are incompetent and don't respect their employees. Working for them will be miserable, so you should go get hired somewhere else.
I *wish* humans would save me the trouble of trying to get a job by just repeating "vertical bar pilates", instead of making me go through multiple rounds of interviews, plus a week or more of employment, before finally revealing what idiots they are (and that I never should have applied for the job in the first place).
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. And is there an AI that actually functions well enough for this? Granted, maybe to handle the most obviously good/bad candidates, but what about the other, perhaps, more atypical personalities or experiences, especially on the good side? Not every good candidate fits the molds.
Re:Signs You Shouldn't be Applying There ... (Score:4, Informative)
Second, if a company is too busy to interview someone, then they are too busy to care about you as an employee.
Third, there is no AI that is good enough to handle this, in fact I would use it as a way to hack into the company.
Re:Signs You Shouldn't be Applying There ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I do believe that companies are going to eventually figure out this doesn't work and is actually costing them money and missed talent. But, unfortunately, in the near term it's the prospective employees who are going to feel the pain.
Personally, I'm glad I'm basically at retirement age. I quite enjoy my recently-acquired current role (it's the only reason I'm still working, frankly); but if something changed, or if my employer decided to end my position, I can and would just retire - I just can't see myself dealing with what appears to be an almost dystopian current tech job landscape.
Re:Signs You Shouldn't be Applying There ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just tech jobs. Tech has it's own unique issues, but I've applied for work in several other industries in the past 10 years, and everywhere you turn it's weird, shitty hiring practices.
Even a lot of minimum-wage jobs now are having you jump through hoops and do hours of online testing before you can even submit your application, much less get an interview. A few of them still have a 1-page paper application you can submit in-person, like when I got my first job. But I imagine they fill their positions quickly.
This is just the stuff you can see from the outside, Lord knows what kind of social credit score checks and AI bullshit they're doing internally.
Re: (Score:3)
Personally, I'm glad I'm basically at retirement age. I quite enjoy my recently-acquired current role (it's the only reason I'm still working, frankly); but if something changed, or if my employer decided to end my position, I can and would just retire - I just can't see myself dealing with what appears to be an almost dystopian current tech job landscape.
I'm in the exact same circumstances; I could have written this word-for-word.
I like what I'm doing, I'm paid more than I ought to be, the workload is very low, and I work from home. I could retire tomorrow but I enjoy what I'm doing for the moment and I don't mind the extra money.
But like you, if I was laid off I'd just retire on the spot. I'm too old and cranky to put myself through anything degrading, inconvenient, or protracted.
(Of course, this assumes that we'll actually get our Social Security and Medi
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. An AI interviewer will never reject me. I will leave if anybody tries to do that to me. I guess these companies only want to hire desperate low-skill workers...
They just want h-1bs (Score:1, Interesting)
One of the things that really pisses me off is seeing idiots freaking out because we let fruit pickers into the country and completely ignoring Trump and musk both pushing for more high skill workers and getting them.
It was a little bit of outrage on the right wing when musk and Trump said they wanted more h-1bs but it was very
Re:They just want h-1bs (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the things that really pisses me off is seeing idiots freaking out because we let fruit pickers into the country and completely ignoring Trump and musk both pushing for more high skill workers and getting them.
They don't understand the high skill jobs. They do understand fruit picking, nominally anyway. They don't seem to understand that they don't want to pick fruit for a living, though, that part is a little weird.
Re: (Score:3)
Reminds me of the UK mussel-farmer that was so proud he voted for Brexit and that now the UK had total control over trade conditions. But he also said he sold 95% of his produce to the EU and did not know how that would continue. These people are just terminally dumb and cannot think rationally even when their lifes depend on it.
Re: (Score:3)
One of the things that really pisses me off is seeing idiots freaking out because we let fruit pickers into the country
Surely you can see how making fruit picking jobs available for Americans fits in with the rest of the conservative agenda? Republicans recently rejected that "big beautiful budget bill" (close enough) because https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com]>it doesn't make enough budget cuts.
Are the pieces starting to fall into place now? The idea is to cut government assistance programs to the point that people actually start taking those shitty jobs picking fruit and building iPhones. They're not gonna be satisfie
Re: They just want h-1bs (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
One of the software companies mentioned was founded by "A. Wang."
Any relation to I.C. Weiner?
No, but his distant cousin is I. Seymour Butz.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody wants people anymore (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I doubt these laid-off HR agents are going to find another job in HR when all the companies are doing this, and a recession coming. A bunch of them will end up waiting tables and doing delivery. With incomes cut in half and health insurance gone, they won't be able to pay for the overpriced SUVs and "luxury housing" that's been pushed on them. (Man, remember when you could buy just a regular house, and a regular car? When they still made those things?)
I don't know about "World War 3" - certainly small
Re: (Score:2)
If 10 desparate and organized people came to your door looking for anything to steal, do you think your ammo and guns will be able to stop and drop them before they drop you?
Probably not, but it improves the odds.
The main issue is... the "average" people have mostly stood idly by and let it get to this stage (and I am not talking about Trump because he is only the symptom)
A third of them have been actively voting for it to happen this way, because they are dumber than boxes of rocks.
Re: (Score:2)
If 10 desparate and organized people came to your door looking for anything to steal, do you think your ammo and guns will be able to stop and drop them before they drop you?
Oftentimes after the first few "desperate and organized" people get shot in the face or chest, the others will GTFO post haste and go look for easier pickings.
The main issue is... the "average" people have mostly stood idly by and let it get to this stage (and I am not talking about Trump because he is only the symptom)
Trump is both a symptom and a cause. He's proof that 1/3rd of the general population in the US are uneducated, stupid as fuck, and as gullible as they come. I call them the Dunning-Kruger Party.
Re: (Score:1)
You could have 10x needed supply on weapons and ammo, but a motivated mob will still take you out, simply with numbers. You need a tribe, a team of like-minded fellows.
I have several fully automatic weapons and the ammo required to put them to good use, but my family is still doomed, simply because it is me, my wife and my nine-year old child. We can't defend our house sufficiently due to lack of Human Resources.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm under no illusions of being John Wick or Rambo. I'm also not in a post-apocalyptic film where I have to worry about roaming bands of warriors.
I live in the suburbs, there's still police and neighbors. The threats around here now and for the foreseeable future would probably be between 2 and 4 criminals of the same type that I was already planning for. Nobody's going to be able to set up a trebuchet outside, or even stick around for more than a few seconds after shots are fired.
If we're talking about com
It's Relative (Score:4, Interesting)
While I would hope a company like IBM had competent HR, there are so many organizations whose human-administered hiring process is so fucked up, that throwing darts at photos of the candidates would lead to better results.
For example, I think the AI that got stuck repeating itself probably understands my work about as well as the interviewer who wanted to focus on what I did 20 years ago in high school and immediately after graduating, rather than anything recent or relevant to the job. (No, there was nothing weird I did in school, but he was trying to do some shitty psychoanalysis-by-numbers hiring methodology, and opened immediately with a focus on high school.)
Re: (Score:2)
From the few contacts I had with IBM "consultants", IBM had not had competend HR for at least 10 years.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
IBM is a bureaucracy, but without any of the oversight of a functional government. So no, they do not have competent HR.
I worked for an IBM acquisition (Tivoli) shortly after they were acquired. This is not a good plan, but I was young and dumb then. I got hired by in fact a brilliant HR person, who was a pre-acquisition hire. She was very intelligent and useful. Once they figured that out they moved her out of the support division ASAP.
The person they hired to replace her was someone I knew from the local
Re: (Score:2)
That's why I said "I would hope" and not "I expect". I've seen enough of the inside of Big Tech to not have any illusions that they're all super-competent ubermensch.
AI Interview: this is not a good place to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Using an AI to interview people simply sends the message: we don't care enough about you to even talk to you. Don't work here.
It takes one to know one (Score:2)
AI interviewers will be hiring AI applicants, because the tokens will match.
Re: (Score:2)
"Supercharging your business with agentic symmetries" - sounds like something the job-creators would leap at the chance to do.
Old news (Score:2)
Google has been doing this for ages, even prior to becoming one of the many subsidiaries of Alphabet, via YouTube. As a content creator, unless you are in the top 1%, you hardly have access to a human, and most appeals falls into deaf AI bots. Yet, the platform continues to grow, attracting more content creators, all in the hopes they can make a living without taking strikes and not losing it all thanks to the lack of humans.
Re: Old news (Score:2)
vertical bar pilates (Score:2)
"Vertical bar pilates" has got to be that someone prompted it to be defensive about "poll dancing" and the guardrails just went up too high and broke everything.Poll dancing is of course a legitimate thing on its own and not just a cool stripper prop.
The dehumanization (Score:2)
The dehumanizing nature of this is a feature, not a bug.
Generative AI is an oxymoron. (Score:2)
"Generative AI" is an oxymoron. There ain't no such thing. It is more like Generative Stupidity - and anyone who relies on it for a serious application where a human who is smarter than the AI can correct its mistakes and double check everything it does is somewhere between technologically naive, illiterate, and insane. Whatever it is it is definitely not "intelligent", and more than likely *never* will be, cheap parlor tricks notwithstanding. Except of course, they are not so cheap or inexpensive either
Were the interviews real, or fake? (Score:2)
Why should we assume that these AI "interviews" were real? I have no doubt there are plenty of pranksters on the internet, pretending to interview people for jobs. Deep fakes are a thing, why wouldn't there be deep fake interviews too?