Applying for jobs is now a regular part of Paloma Canseco’s business, but an interactive, AI-powered phone conversation with a recruiter is not.
But it could happen soon.
The New York-based graphic designer told CNBC Make It that after she filled out a job application in mid-October, she immediately received a call from a voice calling themselves a “virtual recruiter.” .
The call started with basic jury questions, such as whether she was authorized to work in the United States and whether she had a bachelor’s degree. She knew she wasn’t on the phone with a live person and assumed the voice on the other end was simply repeating a prerecorded question. “But the voice felt very natural, very human, and in a way terrifying,” says Canseco.
She realized that the voice was talking to her, giving responses like, “‘Oh, that’s really interesting,’ or ‘Oh, that’s exactly what we’re looking for.'” I did. When you called the robot, it used artificial intelligence to conduct a screening.
“When I got the call, I thought, ‘Is this real?'” Canseco said. “I couldn’t tell if it was a real human, software, or AI. It was very difficult to tell.”
After some basic questions, the virtual recruiter asked her to recall her last design experience. At that point, Canseco said, he hung up. “If a company doesn’t even spend five minutes screening someone, that’s probably not the kind of company culture I’m looking for right now.”
After posting her experience on LinkedIn, she says multiple people contacted her to share similar experiences with “conversational” AI recruiters. One person told her that something similar had happened four months earlier at the same company.
AI in recruitment is “embedded in reality”
Although AI in recruitment is a relatively new phenomenon, companies are already leveraging it to varying degrees.
“It’s definitely here, it’s real, it’s incorporated,” says Brent Olsuga, founder of Pinnacle Growth Advisors, a recruiting firm specializing in supply chain and logistics companies.
In October, Chipotle announced a unique AI-powered recruiter called Ava Cado. This person will help the hiring manager schedule interviews, gather basic information, and answer questions about the company.
Ava Cado is powered by Paradox, an AI recruiting software company that serves more than 1,000 customers worldwide, including Amazon, McDonald’s, General Motors, and Pfizer, according to the company’s website. Chipotle’s AI recruiters do not screen resumes or conduct live interviews, a company spokesperson told CNBC Make It.
While many companies are choosing to use AI as a scheduling and logistics tool in the hiring process, leading self-recorded interview platforms such as Spark Hire and HireVue are integrating AI into their video screening software. It states that Companies like Apriora go a step further and offer AI interviewers that can conduct responsive video interviews in real-time.
Interactive AI interviews will become the new norm by 2025
Olsuga says we can expect conversational AI interviewing to become the new norm by 2025.
“It’s already in place and people are just starting to accept it and implement it,” Olsuga said. “This is not years away; it’s months at most.”
Olsuga says there are benefits for companies and candidates to use AI in the interview process. In jury interviews, people typically fall into three buckets: “yes,” “no,” and “maybe,” but AI could help weed out clearly unqualified candidates. says Olsuga.
This practice can also paradoxically bring back the “human” in HR, allowing applicants to engage in dialogue on their behalf, rather than simply being judged and potentially rejected based on their resume and cover letter. “It enables the ability to speak up and speak out,” he says.
Orsuga’s main concern is not knowing what the AI is being told to recognize. He says the AI can be tuned to recognize everything from how clearly a candidate communicates, how they look, to the background behind them.
In traditional human resources, it’s important to eliminate bias, Olsuga says. In an interactive AI interview, he said there is much more uncertainty.
“We are the generation that is beta testing all of this,” Orsuga says. “There’s going to be some mistakes, there’s going to be some good things and there’s going to be some bad things that come out of them, that’s for sure.”
“There are people applying for these jobs.”
Canseco says if she encounters another conversational AI interview, she’ll probably hang up again.
She acknowledges the benefits of AI in the recruitment process, but says interactive AI interviews reduce human interaction in a “very human” process, making it more “scary and difficult.” He said he was worried that it would become a problem.
“These jobs are being applied for by humans, and we spend a lot of time on each job application,” Canseco said, adding that the use of AI makes the process impersonal and makes it easier for recruiters and recruiters to apply. He added that he felt disconnected from those in charge.
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