Latest news with #Mississauga
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
An AI bot might be asking the questions at your next job interview
When Wafa Shafiq realized her upcoming job interview would be conducted by an artificial intelligence bot, she thought: Why not? "I thought it'd be really cool. I wanted to try it," said Shafiq. Alex, an AI bot powered by software company Aprioria, interviewed the 26-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., for a marketing position at a retirement insurance agency. It asked her about herself and her experience for 30 minutes. It acknowledged her responses and complimented them before asking a followup question. "I was shocked that it was asking such good followup questions," Shafiq told CBC News. "My expectations had been lower." While some companies are turning to artificial intelligence to streamline their recruitment processes, some job candidates are concerned about how they're being evaluated and losing the chance to connect with recruiters. WATCH | How AI is changing the job interview process: This technology is still in the early phase, says Mike Shekhtman, senior regional director at Canadian employment agency Robert Half. "As the technology improves, we will continue to see perhaps an acceleration." Ribbon, an AI-interviewer software company, is among the Canadian companies to have seen an opportunity in this market. "A year ago, people thought we were crazy," Arsham Ghahramani, Ribbon's CEO, said in an interview. In nine months, Ribbon has amassed 400 customers who now use its bot to conduct interviews. Ghahramani and his team spent more than a year building and training their AI using publicly available interviews and voice datasets. They wanted their AI to show the right emotion and ask the right questions, he said. But some candidates would prefer a human recruiter. Maureen Green, a health technology consultant, was approached to do an interview for a position in a Canadian health-care company that uses AI to direct patient calls. She was told the interview would be done by the company's own AI bot. At first, Green, who lives in Vancouver, said she was impressed by the system, finding it spoke and acted similarly to a human. "It really did feel like a conversation and it felt like it was listening." But what was scheduled to be a 30-minute interview ended up going for more than an hour, as the AI kept asking followup questions and showed no signs of drawing the interview to an end. Not knowing what else to do, Green said she thanked the AI interviewer for its time. "I said: 'I'm so sorry, but it was wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much for the opportunity,' and so it ended." LISTEN | Are we ready for robots among us?: Green thought she had done well in the interview, but she never heard back. "I had been left feeling taken advantage of because … I put a lot of effort into this interview and really took it seriously, but I also get the feeling that it's being trained by talking to people," she said. "It can be done well, I'm sure, but this wasn't it." Shafiq shared the sentiment. She entered her interview with curiosity and some skepticism. The email she received to schedule the interview didn't mention AI — she only found out after looking into it herself. And she didn't get a followup after the interview either. She thought it was "cool" that she could schedule the interview at any time of the day, even in the middle of the night, and was impressed by the few glitches she experienced — it only had difficulty answering some of her questions. But she wished she had more information on how her performance would be evaluated. "If companies do use AI for recruitment, there's such an opportunity for communicating what the benefits of it are," Shafiq said. "Sending a message beforehand to be like: 'This is what to expect, this is how to prepare.'" Although Shafiq is open to doing more AI interviews, she said she missed the human connection she usually gets with regular interviews. "There's no small talk, there was nothing personal and I wasn't able to really tell if my answers were landing or not." Is it a replacement for human recruiters? Job interviews done by AI agents allow for much more flexibility in hiring internal roles and can accelerate the process, said Elena McGuire, director of people and special projects at Thrive Career Wellness, a Toronto-based HR consulting company. The company has several positions open at once and they hire internationally. They use Ribbon, which allows candidates to choose an interview time that works for them and to interview in French for bilingual positions. McGuire said it allowed the company to cut down thousands of applicants and hire six new employees. "It's really not meant to replace us HR folk, but help us." McGuire also said that the company's hiring decisions aren't made by AI. Ribbon summarizes interviews and gives scores based on the company's requirements, allowing recruiters to decide whether or not to move ahead with the candidate. "They're [companies] looking at ways to not lose any beat and not miss out on candidates," said Shekhtman, of employment agency Robert Half. "But that comes with a tremendous amount of caution as well," he added, to ensure AI agents don't overlook qualified candidates or spotlight unqualified ones by focusing too much on technicalities. But companies will ultimately leverage any tool that will help them streamline their processes, especially if their resources are waning, said Shekhtman. "If you don't embrace [the technology], you're going to get run over by it." When it comes to being interviewed by AI, Terri Griffith, Keith Beedie chairholder in innovation and entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, said she hasn't heard yet "a candidate be excited." She said AI is being used by both recruiters and applicants. "This is a punchline to a joke that goes: 'I used my AI to apply for the job, they used AI to review my application … now we're having an [AI] interview.'" LISTEN | What AI means for the future of your career: Griffith sees the use of AI bots in interviews having various potential outcomes: with enough pushback could come regulation or with enough improvement of the technology and its implementation could come approval. Green, reflecting on her interview, noted that although she is "really open" to AI, many people are not, and she hopes companies will understand that their trust needs to be earned. "I don't think we need to be speedy in applying these systems to what we are doing. I think we should be thoughtful and respectful of the people it's interacting with," she said. "So hopefully that will change, but I'm optimistic." Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CBC
9 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
An AI bot might be asking the questions at your next job interview
When Wafa Shafiq realized her upcoming job interview would be conducted by an artificial intelligence bot, she thought: Why not? "I thought it'd be really cool. I wanted to try it," said Shafiq. Alex, an AI bot powered by software company Aprioria, interviewed the 26-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., for a marketing position at a retirement insurance agency. It asked her about herself and her experience for 30 minutes. It acknowledged her responses and complimented them before asking a followup question. "I was shocked that it was asking such good followup questions," Shafiq told CBC News. "My expectations had been lower." While some companies are turning to artificial intelligence to streamline their recruitment processes, some job candidates are concerned about how they're being evaluated and losing the chance to connect with recruiters. WATCH | How AI is changing the job interview process: Your next job interview could be with an AI bot 3 days ago Duration 2:10 Companies are using AI hiring bots to screen, shortlist and talk to job candidates. Advocates say the technology frees up human workers from tedious tasks, but some applicants say it adds confusion to the process, and there are concerns about HR job losses. This technology is still in the early phase, says Mike Shekhtman, senior regional director at Canadian employment agency Robert Half. "As the technology improves, we will continue to see perhaps an acceleration." 'People thought we were crazy' Ribbon, an AI-interviewer software company, is among the Canadian companies to have seen an opportunity in this market. "A year ago, people thought we were crazy," Arsham Ghahramani, Ribbon's CEO, said in an interview. In nine months, Ribbon has amassed 400 customers who now use its bot to conduct interviews. Ghahramani and his team spent more than a year building and training their AI using publicly available interviews and voice datasets. They wanted their AI to show the right emotion and ask the right questions, he said. But some candidates would prefer a human recruiter. Missing the human touch Maureen Green, a health technology consultant, was approached to do an interview for a position in a Canadian health-care company that uses AI to direct patient calls. She was told the interview would be done by the company's own AI bot. At first, Green, who lives in Vancouver, said she was impressed by the system, finding it spoke and acted similarly to a human. "It really did feel like a conversation and it felt like it was listening." But what was scheduled to be a 30-minute interview ended up going for more than an hour, as the AI kept asking followup questions and showed no signs of drawing the interview to an end. Not knowing what else to do, Green said she thanked the AI interviewer for its time. "I said: 'I'm so sorry, but it was wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much for the opportunity,' and so it ended." Green thought she had done well in the interview, but she never heard back. "I had been left feeling taken advantage of because … I put a lot of effort into this interview and really took it seriously, but I also get the feeling that it's being trained by talking to people," she said. "It can be done well, I'm sure, but this wasn't it." Shafiq shared the sentiment. She entered her interview with curiosity and some skepticism. The email she received to schedule the interview didn't mention AI — she only found out after looking into it herself. And she didn't get a followup after the interview either. She thought it was "cool" that she could schedule the interview at any time of the day, even in the middle of the night, and was impressed by the few glitches she experienced — it only had difficulty answering some of her questions. But she wished she had more information on how her performance would be evaluated. "If companies do use AI for recruitment, there's such an opportunity for communicating what the benefits of it are," Shafiq said. "Sending a message beforehand to be like: 'This is what to expect, this is how to prepare.'" Although Shafiq is open to doing more AI interviews, she said she missed the human connection she usually gets with regular interviews. "There's no small talk, there was nothing personal and I wasn't able to really tell if my answers were landing or not." Is it a replacement for human recruiters? Job interviews done by AI agents allow for much more flexibility in hiring internal roles and can accelerate the process, said Elena McGuire, director of people and special projects at Thrive Career Wellness, a Toronto-based HR consulting company. The company has several positions open at once and they hire internationally. They use Ribbon, which allows candidates to choose an interview time that works for them and to interview in French for bilingual positions. McGuire said it allowed the company to cut down thousands of applicants and hire six new employees. "It's really not meant to replace us HR folk, but help us." McGuire also said that the company's hiring decisions aren't made by AI. Ribbon summarizes interviews and gives scores based on the company's requirements, allowing recruiters to decide whether or not to move ahead with the candidate. "They're [companies] looking at ways to not lose any beat and not miss out on candidates," said Shekhtman, of employment agency Robert Half. "But that comes with a tremendous amount of caution as well," he added, to ensure AI agents don't overlook qualified candidates or spotlight unqualified ones by focusing too much on technicalities. But companies will ultimately leverage any tool that will help them streamline their processes, especially if their resources are waning, said Shekhtman. "If you don't embrace [the technology], you're going to get run over by it." AI interviews 'a punchline' When it comes to being interviewed by AI, Terri Griffith, Keith Beedie chairholder in innovation and entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, said she hasn't heard yet "a candidate be excited." She said AI is being used by both recruiters and applicants. "This is a punchline to a joke that goes: 'I used my AI to apply for the job, they used AI to review my application … now we're having an [AI] interview.'" Griffith sees the use of AI bots in interviews having various potential outcomes: with enough pushback could come regulation or with enough improvement of the technology and its implementation could come approval. Green, reflecting on her interview, noted that although she is "really open" to AI, many people are not, and she hopes companies will understand that their trust needs to be earned. "I don't think we need to be speedy in applying these systems to what we are doing. I think we should be thoughtful and respectful of the people it's interacting with," she said. "So hopefully that will change, but I'm optimistic."
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Missing child found in critical condition in Mississauga
Peel police say a child that was reported missing in Mississauga has been rushed to hospital critical condition Saturday. Officers told CBC Toronto they responded to a call for a missing young child in the area of Mississauga Road and Dundas Street just after 3:30 p.m. In a post to X, police said the child had "wandered off" but was located by first responders. Peel paramedics said they attended the scene alongside police and Mississauga Fire for reports of a person in the water, and transported one paediatric patient in critical, life-threatening condition to a local hospital. Police are asking the public to avoid the Erindale Park area.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre hosts charity cricket match, raises upwards of $1M
More than 400 cricketers and celebrities gathered Saturday in Mississauga at the inaugural Cricket to Conquer Cancer event to raise funds for the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre's research. Canadian artist Jully Black was one of the celebrity ambassadors attending the fundraiser and said the event feels "personal" to her. "Cancer has run through my family," she told CBC Toronto on Saturday. "Unfortunately, I lost my mom seven years ago to pancreatic cancer." The Canadian Cancer Society says that two in five Canadians are expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. When Black was 27 years old, she found a lump in her right breast. She said doctors at the time told her she was too young for a mammogram. She said her doctor had to advocate for her to do all the tests, but that luckily it was just a false alarm. "Early detection is key," she said. "We need the research, but we also need the education and the early detection." Barbados-born professional cricketer Carlos Brathwaite said the fundraising event brings together two things that are close to his heart: cancer and cricket. Brathwaite said his mother battled cancer in Barbados while he was starting his professional career overseas. "I know how difficult it is for friends, for families who can't be there with loved ones," Brathwaite told CBC Toronto on Saturday. He said he also wants to bring awareness to the importance of cancer research and how that helped his mother beat cancer. "When she told me she had cancer, I thought it was a death sentence. And really and truly, because of the research, that means that cancer is not a death sentence," Brathwaite said. "Although she hasn't been treated here, there's a lot of research that has been done by Princess Margaret and that's been disseminated to many other hospitals and cancer centres around the world." Brathwaite said he flew in from Barbados to be one of the event's celebrity ambassadors, alongside Black. Other celebrity ambassadors included Canadian former professional basketball player Jamaal Magloire and Canadian former professional soccer player Dwayne De Rosario. The top fundraising teams had the opportunity to draft the celebrity players onto their teams through a celebrity draft on Friday. The president and CEO of the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation said it feels inspiring to launch an inaugural cricket event for the hospital. "Cricket is Canada's fastest growing sport," Miyo Yamashita told CBC Toronto on Saturday. "It's also a sport that is followed hugely by a growing number of Canadians, particularly the Southeast Asian community and the Caribbean community, and those communities have quite unique cancer needs," she said. Yamashita said Southeast Asian Canadians tend to have higher incidences of certain types of cancers, like oral cancers, esophageal cancers, and head and neck cancers. Caribbean men have a higher incidence of prostate cancer and are more likely to die from it, she said. WATCH | Toronto hospital network to expand cancer care, research in new building: Yamashita said all the proceeds raised from Saturday's event will go to the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation and will support three areas: cancer early detection, innovative treatments, and comprehensive cancer support, which includes support for caregivers and mental health support. "We think those areas together can really help create a world free from the fear of cancer," she said. She said the goal for the event was to raise $500,000, but as of Saturday evening, it had already passed a million dollars.
CTV News
18 hours ago
- General
- CTV News
Child taken to hospital with critical injuries in Mississauga
A Peel Police shoulder patch is seen in Mississauga, Ont., on July 1, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Arlyn McAdorey A young child was taken to hospital with critical injuries in Mississauga on Saturday afternoon. The child was found at 3:36 p.m. by first responders near Mississauga Road and Dundas Street, after reportedly wandering away, Peel Regional Police said in a post on X. Paramedics told CP24 that they responded with several crews after they received reports of a person in the water at around 4:20 p.m. Police have advised people to avoid the Erindale Park area due to a large police presence. More details to come…
