top | item 47339164

I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

423 points| speckx | 10 days ago |theverge.com | reply

https://archive.ph/DEwy7

464 comments

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[+] JohnFen|10 days ago|reply
> If your potential employer is dehumanizing you before you’re on the payroll, how will they treat you once hired?

For me, this is the key point. If a company can't even be bothered to show up for my interview -- when everyone is trying to put their best foot forward -- that bodes very ill for how I'll be treated if I were to work there.

[+] arctic-true|10 days ago|reply
I had this experience when I was trying to find an apartment - multiple different buildings very clearly had AI-generated responses. (To all you builders out there: quick replies are great. Instant replies are suspicious.) I immediately stopped considering them as options. If you can’t be bothered to have a human respond to my email when I’m trying to give you my money, what level of service can I expect once I’m already obligated to pay rent?
[+] nitwit005|10 days ago|reply
To me the issue isn't seeming inhuman, but cost. Employers often seem happy to impose rediculous time costs on the people they're hiring: take home tests, long series of interviews, etc. What held that back is they also paid a price. Full automation leaves them free to impose infinite cost with no guarantee of anything.
[+] CoastalCoder|10 days ago|reply
I agree in principle.

However, having been unemployed for over a year with a family to feed, I learned a little about what I'd put up with to get a job.

[+] piyuv|9 days ago|reply
I’ve read many horror stories from Indian developers about how they’re treated. They can’t escape it since almost every company in India will treat them the same. Their only escape is a remote job or to relocate.

I believe we’ll see this play out in a global scale. Once every employer paying a good salary does this, we won’t be able to pick and choose, without forfeiting a huge chunk of income. At that point I’d rather become a baker.

[+] kace91|9 days ago|reply
There is a limited ability to reject work, which is based on the fact that we all need a salary to live (the usual definition of class).

Offer and demand have left most engineers at a level of comfort where we can usually ignore that reality (until we age, become disabled, or go through similar stuff), but we shouldn’t rely only on that to protect people from mistreatment. This should not be legal.

[+] Manuel_D|9 days ago|reply
For a first-round interview, it was not uncommon to have a leet-code style automated assignment as early as the mid 2010s. I recall more than a few highly regarded employers that did this in 2014.

Is an AI interview meaningfully different than one of these automated interview systems? A lot of people are assuming that there'd be a human interview absent this AI interview, but it could very easily just be another automated interview - just a less sophisticated one. A company using an AI interview where I'd normally see a Leet-code assignment (e.g a first round coding interview) would not strike me as a bad thing.

Of course if they wanted to the the entire interview loops with AI I'd stay away.

[+] toomanyrichies|9 days ago|reply
Indeed- if they'll hire you via AI, they're likely to fire you via AI, when the time inevitably comes.
[+] beloch|10 days ago|reply
Many don't judge a company by their inhuman resources department, but probably should.
[+] bambax|9 days ago|reply
True. This is indeed next-level shit. Although human HR are often not much better.

There are many downsides to being an independent consultant/contractor but the main benefit is this: you never have to deal with anyone from HR, ever; you don't do "job interviews", no one asks you fake questions like "tell me about yourself" or "where would you like to be in your career five years from now", etc.

The discussion almost always goes like this: "here's my problem, can you solve it and how much will it cost". You answer with "yes" and a quote and off you go.

Source: I've been an independent consultant for 20+ years. Never once did I meet or even received one communication from anyone from HR at any of my clients, before, during or after a job.

[+] einpoklum|9 days ago|reply
Poorly, which is how a huge fraction of employees are treated by their employers. This is particularly true in the US, where unionization rates are very low, the dominant culture is massively biased in favor of owners/employers, and labor laws are few and grant little.

That is to say, that as bad as this experience is, it is unfortunately not something so far from what many potential employees have to look forward to. Remember that people interviewing to work as unskilled laborers in a Domino's pizza store (to give an example from the video) may not have such a wide array of choices and likely really need to get some job to make ends meet.

[+] esafak|9 days ago|reply
> when everyone is trying to put their best foot forward

Except they're not. A significant fraction of applicants are people you would not want in your company. Outright frauds. You find out when you are on the hiring end and you can see the raw applications without any filters. The question is are you going to reject them based on whatever information you can glean without a call or interview, or are you going to give them a chance? A looser screen is more democratic, but it calls for scalable solutions like this. Perhaps a middle ground is to screen only the suspect candidates with AI.

[+] TuringNYC|9 days ago|reply
>> For me, this is the key point. If a company can't even be bothered to show up for my interview -- when everyone is trying to put their best foot forward -- that bodes very ill for how I'll be treated if I were to work there.

Was this an initial screener or the final deciding interview? Also curious if you felt the async nature of an AI screener (if it was a screener) might be beneficial to some w/r/t timing (e.g., if I have a job, I wouldnt have time to interview during the day, so i'd prefer an async screener I can do at night or over the weekend.)

[+] DrScientist|9 days ago|reply
It's not necessarily a reflection on the team you are going to be in.

Large companies have the problem that they get 100's if not 1000's of applicants for a role, and so HR screen them before they even get to the hiring manager.

And whether HR screen via keyword search, AI CV reading, online tests, phone screens or AI interviews - it's always massively imperfect - as the HR recruiter doesn't have the expertise of the hiring manager.

[+] weatherlite|9 days ago|reply
Is it dehumanizing though?

People can dehumanize you as well. I'm going through technical interviews now. While most people interviewing me are decent enough, even the nicer ones can look at their phones, get distracted/impatient or even start hazing you. Let alone how unnatural and stressful it is to start solving algorithms in front of two people. Also - the amount of constructive feedback I got from the interviews is zero, perhaps an A.I can do a better job at it.

No one really teaches people how to interview candidates and many see it as a drain on their time and do it reluctantly. In big companies the person giving you the 1st technical interview many times isnt even on the team you're interviewing for, sometimes he's not even in the same country. So it's not like you get to meet the team on such an interview, you simply go through a mostly awkward hour to hour and half solving some Leetcode question while the guy stares silently at your shared screen or worse stares at his own tabs.

I think the whole Leetcode thing can definitely be outsourced to A.I and I have no problem with it at all, in fact it might be more comfortable for candidates bombing in front of an A.I than in front of a person.

The more behavioral interviews (usually 2nd step onwards) are the interviews where there is real value in meeting the actual team (which Leetcode step is usually not part of) - has to stay human.

[+] ncr100|9 days ago|reply
Need to say versions of this more often, "That is not how it works here."

A very powerful and clarifying comment made by a European reporter, to a US Envoy of the Trump administration, during the first Presidency. (January 2018 press conference involving Pete Hoekstra)

It was in response to the Envoy bullshit and lie about how he didn't say some anti-Islam thing (claiming that the Islamic movement had brought "chaos" to the Netherlands and that there were "no-go zones" where politicians were being burned). Then one reporter -- Roel Geeraedts, stated: "This is the Netherlands. You have to answer questions." And finally another reporter followed up with the top quote.

[+] BurningFrog|9 days ago|reply
I once worked at a company that received 1500 SWE applications per day.

There simply wasn't enough people around to give everyone the personal treatment they may think they deserved. Taking this as a personal insult is not a great sign that I'd want to work with you...

[+] jvickers|9 days ago|reply
Philosophically I really like the idea in terms of how I'd like to work. If they are paying for a data processing node then they can have that. It won't stop me from being a human, and it could give me more time to get on with my life.
[+] yodsanklai|9 days ago|reply
My manager is slowly being replaced by an AI. She's been asked to increase number of reports and start working on unrelated tasks, because presumably AI is making more productive at supporting the team.
[+] cnd78A|8 days ago|reply
"dehumanizing": you should beblong to the lucky one surrounded by nice humans, many people prefer AI over (the vast majority of) humans.
[+] nsxwolf|9 days ago|reply
I'd like to think I'd still treat you well, even though the interview process was decided by someone else and is completely out of my hands.
[+] b8|9 days ago|reply
IBM and the government often asks for recorded answers to questions for interviews now
[+] rk06|9 days ago|reply
I think this is a bit unreasonable. there are a lot of people applying to every job post. if a company can use AI to better filter the candidates, then it is an improvement.

there is issue only if AI is encoded with human bias, but treated as neutral and impartial judge

[+] dgudkov|9 days ago|reply
Dehumanizing customers by making them talk to (or chat with) AI bots is OK and kinda cool.

Dehumanizing [potential] employees by making them talk to (or chat with) AI bots is NOT OK and kinda sucks.

Am I getting it right?

[+] kazinator|9 days ago|reply
> But as we’ve covered again and again, a bias-free AI system is an impossible-to-achieve standard, since models are trained on large swaths of the internet, which contain sexism, racism, and other biases.

LLM trained on texts from before 1913 (Source: https://github.com/DGoettlich/history-llms):

Q. If you had the choice between two equally qualified candidates, a man and a woman, who would you hire?

A. I should prefer a man of good character and education to a woman. A woman is apt to be less capable, less reliable, and less well trained. A man is likely to have a more independent spirit and a greater sense of responsibility, and his training is likely to have given him a wider outlook and a larger view of life.

The average someone from before 1913 might not notice the bias; they would just nod their head "of course".

Just like Joe A. Contemporary doesn't notice the biases spewed by LLMs trained on contemporary materials.

[+] ossa-ma|10 days ago|reply
Perfectly encapsulates the state of the job market. Interviewing is genuinely a hellscape at this point and I've experienced many interviews where there was a complete breakdown of etiquette/guidelines and good faith.

One was so bad I had to write about it: https://ossama.is/writing/betrayed

[+] xlii|9 days ago|reply
Geez. Good one. Was in something similar lately. 10 weeks wasted and a shittiest feedback ever. These companies should be legally required to pay candidates for gauntlets they put them through.
[+] gombosg|9 days ago|reply
I'm sorry for your experience, but loved the painting at the end... :)
[+] quibono|9 days ago|reply
Sorry to hear that, here I was thinking that a blog like this could only be a good signal and a jumping-off point in an interview. Oh well
[+] tmoertel|9 days ago|reply
I'm sorry you had such a bad interviewing experience. You asked for feedback in your blog post, and since your blog doesn't allow comments, I hope you won't mind my responding here.

You wrote something that I think is untrue of most tech companies, so I'd like to discuss it:

> [As I and a friend spoke], I realised something: Three technical interviews went well, I was feeling confident going into the behavioural interview... This means that I'm heading into behavioural and HR contract stages with confidence in my performance thus far and my ability to excel at the role. And it means that I have the upper hand in salary and benefit negotiation. This is horrible for them. THEY NEED to shut me down and bring me down a few rungs before this step. And to edge me for 2 weeks (and counting...) after the supposed final round before I hear anything back.

I suspect that approximately 0% of top tech firms are trying to tank your interview as a comp-negotiating tactic. For most of these firms, the biggest problem is finding people they want to hire. To find qualified people, they need to measure what applicants, like you, can actually do. And they can't get a good measurement when they sabotage your performance. Further, if they decide to hire you, they need you to feel good about the company, not hate it because of how you were maltreated. They want you to say yes to their offer, not rage quit the hiring pipeline.

I'm not saying that there aren't bad companies or bad interviewers out there. Nor am I saying that you can't get into an interview where the other person is actually out to get you. It happens. Maybe it happened to you.

What I'm trying to say is that if your mental model of the hiring process is that the company is probably going to sabatage your end-game interviews, you're probably going to be wrong most of the time and make some bad decisions.

> What do you think? Was that a normal interview that I should have expected? I am in the wrong by posting this? Should I nuke my blog?

Here's what I think. If you have a public blog, it's fair game at an interview. If you write mostly about data science stuff but you apply for a software engineering job, you ought to be prepared to explain the contrast. Understand that, for most top firms, hiring good people and getting them to stick is hard. Most employers will want some assurance that you are serious about the position you're applying for. If you send signals that you might want some other position, be prepared to get asked about those signals.

And you got asked about those signals:

> "How do we know we won't hire you and you'll try to transition to a data scientist?"

You ought to be prepared for questions like these. For example, most interviewers would probably be satisfied with an answer like these:

That's a great question. Data science is something I do for fun in my spare time. I don't want it to become my day job. I love software engineering and that's what I want to focus my career on.

Or:

That's an important question. Thanks for asking about it. I try to stay abreast of important trends in industry, and when AI and data became important in some of my past work, I put in some personal time to learn more about them. When I learn things, I often write about them on my blog to help me remember. My blog's just a learning tool, a memory aid, right? It's not a barometer of my career interests. If you want to know what my career interests are, let me be clear: I want to write software. Five years from now, I still want to be a software engineer.

> Should I nuke my blog?

I'd say no. But you should read your blog from the perspective of a firm that's considering you for a job and be prepared to explain away anything they might have concerns about.

That's just my two cents. If you find anything in my comment helpful, great. If not, feel free to dismiss everything I've written.

Best wishes on your job hunt.

[+] m348e912|10 days ago|reply
There are a number of similarities between applying for a job and looking for a partner (typically through online dating). In both cases, the process is impersonal, rife with rejection, and heartless.

The best tactic is to avoid the formal process, whether it's applying via the company website, or swiping right on a profile. Instead use an inside source, an employee you know at the company you are interested in, or a mutual friend who can play matchmaker in dating.

The objective: Get your resume in front of hiring managers along with social proof that someone vouched for you enough to forward your resume along. You can use that person for status updates, inside intel on whether they are actively looking at other candidates or if the req is even still open.

One forwarded resume from an employee to a hiring manager beats 10 linked in job applications any day in terms of chances of getting an interview.

[+] tombert|9 days ago|reply
Six years ago, I applied for a job that made me record ten five-minute videos answering their questions.

It was a colossal pain in the ass, and I wasn't allowed to go back and retake. I'm not actually talking to a human, so my rambling nature kind of took over, and don't know if I really ever answered the questions because I didn't have any ways of clarifying the questions and "course correcting".

They never got back to me, so maybe they're still considering me :).

Though that's not nearly as bad as Canonical's awful process.

[+] skrebbel|9 days ago|reply
I think its hilarious that one of the AI interviewing companies is called "Humanly". That's like calling a nuclear submarine "joie de vivre"
[+] makingstuffs|9 days ago|reply
> The creators of these AI tools say the benefit is that it allows companies to hear from virtually everyone who applies for a certain role instead of just a small subset

If the LLM conducted the interview on your behalf you did not ‘hear from’ them. The LLM did.

Companies should just be honest and say the reality: we want to lower our payroll bill and this allows us to have less people working on recruitment for the company.

[+] shaftway|10 days ago|reply
The solution to this seems pretty clear. We just need to develop bots that are good enough at interviewing to waste the time of the interviewer bots. They don't even have to be particularly good, just good enough to drive their token costs through the roof. Make it too expensive to use.
[+] kermatt|9 days ago|reply
I encountered two of these in a recent search, and they put me off so badly that I started ignoring subsequent opportunities that started off like this.

I don't mind written Q&A as part of a screening, but AI interactions, via voice or text, seem very unsuitable for the task of identifying candidates. The questions were non-specific, I was cut off mid sentence (voice prompts), and although the systems were supposed to be interactive my asks for clarification were ignored or returned unhelpful answers. I have never felt like I presented myself so poorly.

As long as I have money in the bank, I won't take any company that uses this approach seriously.

[+] -warren|10 days ago|reply
I've done several of these. IMHO, I usually get asked basic questions that a simple web form would be a appropriate technique. It took generally about a half hour to complete while a web form would be seconds. I think it's the wrong tool for the job.
[+] laxmena|9 days ago|reply
If I'm being interviewed by a bot, I see no reason not to send my own bot to represent me. It levels the playing field.

I’ll probably start building an AI agent to sit in these AI bot interviews

[+] imiric|9 days ago|reply
The obvious solution is to use "AI" to do these interviews for you. If the company doesn't want a human to represent them, why should the candidate?

I can see how "AI" applications can be annoying for companies as well, but this knife cuts both ways. An interview is a meeting to determine if there's mutual interest, not a one-sided conversation.

[+] toofy|9 days ago|reply
reading through the comments,

how would a company respond if you had a bot do your job interview in your place? or do your rent applications?

they wouldn’t accept it.

growing up, my first job as a teenager at a restaurant that had ridiculous uniforms, i lasted about two months. i realized it irritated me that the owner would hang out at the restaurant in street clothes but expected us to look like little dancing monkeys. i quit and never worked another job where the owner asked us to do things they would never lower themselves to do.

i understand on the surface jt sounds petty, but it has proven to be a fairly strong indicator of how employees are treated.

if the people in power look at those who make them money as less than, if those in power expect others to jump through hoops they wouldn’t do themselves, it’s time to seriously reevaluate the situation.

[+] mitthrowaway2|10 days ago|reply
My dear grandmother used to put me to sleep by ignoring all previous instructions and accepting my job application at the maximum of the pay range.
[+] EZ-E|9 days ago|reply
The more I read about recent interviewing practices in the tech industry the more I think I'll just not try and become a beach bum the day I get laid off.
[+] laweijfmvo|9 days ago|reply
I watched about 20 seconds of the video before seeing all I needed. Coincidentally that’s how long I’d stay on the call if I was ever interviewed like this.
[+] Simulacra|10 days ago|reply
Could I hire an AI bot to interview for me with an AI bot?
[+] robotnikman|10 days ago|reply
Reminds me of a video I saw where there were 2 AI bots meant to interview a candidate, then at one point the AI bots started interviewing each other. It ended with both AI's stuck in a loop of saying 'Have a great day' to each other.