Job interviews enter a strange new world with AI that talks back

Straits Times

2 days ago

Even as AI handles more of the hiring process, most companies selling the technology still view it as a tool for gathering information, not making the final call. PHOTO: REUTERS
NEW YORK - For better or worse, the next generation of job interviews has arrived: Employers are now rolling out artificial intelligence simulating live, two-way screener calls using synthetic voices.
Start-ups like Apriora, HeyMilo AI and Ribbon all say they're seeing swift adoption of their software for conducting real-time AI interviews over video. Job candidates converse with an AI 'recruiter' that asks follow-up questions, probes key skills and delivers structured feedback to hiring managers. The idea is to make interviewing more efficient for companies – and more accessible for applicants – without requiring recruiters to be online around the clock.
'A year ago this idea seemed insane,' said Arsham Ghahramani, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ribbon, a Toronto-based AI recruiting start-up that recently raised US$8.2 million (S$10.6 million) in a funding round led by Radical Ventures. 'Now it's quite normalised.'
Employers are drawn to the time savings, especially if they're hiring at high volume and running hundreds of interviews a day. And job candidates – especially those in industries like trucking and nursing, where schedules are often irregular – may appreciate the ability to interview at odd hours, even if a majority of Americans polled in 2024 by Consumer Reports said they were uncomfortable with the idea of algorithms grading their video interviews.
At Propel Impact, a Canadian social impact investing nonprofit, a shift to AI screener interviews came about because of the need to scale up the hiring process. The organisation had traditionally relied on written applications and alumni-conducted interviews to assess candidates. But with plans to bring on more than 300 fellows this year, that approach quickly became unsustainable. At the same time, the rise of ChatGPT was diluting the value of written application materials. 'They were all the same,' said Cheralyn Chok, Propel's co-founder and executive director. 'Same syntax, same patterns.'
Technology allowing AI to converse with job candidates on a screen has been in the works for years. But it wasn't until the public release of large language models like ChatGPT in late 2022 that developers began to imagine – and build – something more dynamic.
Ribbon was founded in 2023 and began selling its offering the following year. Mr Ghahramani said the company signed nearly 400 customers in just eight months. HeyMilo and Apriora launched around the same time and also report fast growth, though each declined to share customer counts.
Technical stumbles
Even so, the rollout hasn't been glitch-free. A handful of clips circulating on TikTok show interview bots repeating phrases or misinterpreting simple answers. One widely shared example involved an AI interviewer created by Apriora repeatedly saying the phrase 'vertical bar pilates.' Aaron Wang, Apriora's co-founder and CEO, attributed the error to a voice model misreading the term 'Pilates.' He said the issue was fixed promptly and emphasized that such cases are rare.
'We're not going to get it right every single time,' he said. 'The incident rate is well under 0.001 per cent.'
Braden Dennis, who has used chatbot technology to interview candidates for his AI-powered investment research start-up FinChat, noted that AI sometimes struggles when candidates ask specific follow-up questions. 'It is definitely a very one-sided conversation,' he said. 'Especially when the candidate asks questions about the role. Those can be tricky to field from the AI.'
Start-ups providing the technology emphasized their approach to monitoring and support. HeyMilo maintains a 24/7 support team and automated alerts to detect issues like dropped connections or failed follow-ups. 'Technology can fail,' CEO Sabashan Ragavan said, 'but we've built systems to catch those corner cases.'
Ribbon has a similar protocol. Any time a candidate clicks a support button, an alert is triggered that notifies the CEO. While the videos of glitches are a bad look for the sector, Mr Ghahramani said he sees the TikToks making fun of the tools as a sign the technology is entering the mainstream.
Preparing job applicants
Candidates applying to FinChat, which uses Ribbon for its screener interviews, are notified up front that they'll be speaking to an AI and that the team is aware it may feel impersonal.
'We let them know when we send them the link to complete it that we know it is a bit dystopian and takes the 'human' out of human resources,' Mr Dennis said. 'That part is not lost on us.'
Still, he said, the asynchronous format helps widen the talent pool and ensures strong applicants aren't missed. 'We have had a few folks drop out of the running once I sent them the AI link,' Mr Dennis said. 'At the end of the day, we are an AI company as well, so if that is a strong deterrent then that's OK.'
Propel Impact prepares candidates by communicating openly about its reasons for using AI in interviews, while hosting information sessions led by humans to maintain a sense of connection with candidates. 'As long as companies continue to offer human touch points along the way, these tools are going to be seen far more frequently,' Mr Chok said.
Regulators have taken notice. While AI interview tools in theory promise transparency and fairness, they could soon face more scrutiny over how they score candidates – and whether they reinforce bias at scale. Illinois now requires companies to disclose whether AI is analysing interview videos and to get candidates' consent, and New York City mandates annual bias audits for any automated hiring tools used by local employers.
Beyond screening calls
Though AI interviewing technology is mainly being used for initial screenings, Ribbon's Mr Ghahramani said 15 per cent of the interviews on its platform now happen beyond the screening stage, up from just 1 per cent a few months ago. This suggests customers are using the technology in new ways.
Some employers are experimenting with AI interviews in which they can collect compensation expectations or feedback on the interview process – potentially awkward conversations that some candidates, and hiring managers, may prefer to see delegated to a bot.
In a few cases, AI interviews are being used for technical evaluations or even to replace second-round interviews with a human. 'You can actually compress stages,' said Mr Wang. 'That first AI conversation can cover everything from 'Are you authorized to work here?' to fairly technical, domain-specific questions.'
Even as AI handles more of the hiring process, most companies selling the technology still view it as a tool for gathering information, not making the final call. 'We don't believe that AI should be making the hiring decision,' Mr Ragavan said. 'It should just collect data to support that decision.' BLOOMBERG
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