Latest news with #jobinterviews
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Science
- Daily Mail
Scientists reveal the surprising secret to nailing a job interview
When it comes to job interviews, there are endless tips and tricks that promise to help you land the role. But experts have revealed one of the simplest ways to boost your chances – and it's all to do with timing. Researchers investigating oral exams at university discovered that students had the highest level of passing if their exam was held around lunchtime. In contrast, the chances of passing were lowest at the beginning and end of the day, they found. Given the similarities between oral exams and job interviews, they believe their findings could be applicable to hiring situations. 'We show that academic assessment outcomes vary systematically across the day, with a clear peak in passing rates around midday,' Professor Carmelo Mario Vicario, lead author of the study, said. 'Students were more likely to pass in late morning compared to early morning or late afternoon. 'We believe this pattern could extend to job interviews or any evaluative process scheduled throughout the day.' The researchers, from the University of Messina in Italy, were inspired by work which showed that judges were most likely to rule in favour of a defendant after meal breaks or at the beginning of a session. They collected the date, time and outcome of more than 100,000 assessments delivered by 680 examiners for 1,200 courses. 'Oral exams in Italian universities are scheduled at set times, typically lasting 10 to 30 minutes per student,' Professor Vicario said. 'There's no standardized format – professors ask questions based on the course content, and grades are assigned on the spot. 'These exams can be highly stressful due to their unpredictable nature and the strong weight they carry in academic progression.' Overall, only 57 per cent of the exams were passed, they found, with the passing rate peaking at noon. There was no significant difference in the chance of passing if the exam was held at 11am or 1pm, but the chances of passing were lower if the exam was at 8am or 9am, or at 3pm or 4pm, they said. 'These findings have wide–ranging implications,' co–author Professor Alessio Avenanti of the University of Bologna, said. 'They highlight how biological rhythms — often overlooked in decision–making contexts — can subtly but significantly shape the outcome of high–stakes evaluations.' Although the study can't identify the mechanisms behind this pattern, the peak in passes at midday reinforces evidence that cognitive performance improves over the course of a morning before declining in the afternoon. Students' falling energy levels could also lead to diminishing focus, compromising their performance, the team said. 'We would be very interested in investigating whether hiring decisions, too, fluctuate in fairness or outcome depending on time of day,' Professor Vicario said. The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. WILL YOUR JOB BE TAKEN BY A ROBOT? PHYSICAL JOBS ARE AT THE GREATEST RISK Physical jobs in predictable environments, including machine-operators and fast-food workers, are the most likely to be replaced by robots. Management consultancy firm McKinsey, based in New York, focused on the amount of jobs that would be lost to automation, and what professions were most at risk. The report said collecting and processing data are two other categories of activities that increasingly can be done better and faster with machines. This could displace large amounts of labour - for instance, in mortgages, paralegal work, accounting, and back-office transaction processing. Conversely, jobs in unpredictable environments are least are risk. The report added: 'Occupations such as gardeners, plumbers, or providers of child- and eldercare - will also generally see less automation by 2030, because they are technically difficult to automate and often command relatively lower wages, which makes automation a less attractive business proposition.'
Bloomberg
11-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Banks Fight Back Against PE Poachers
Bloomberg Markets TV Shows JPMorgan Chase & Co. bosses grew curious last summer as they clocked an unusual number of absences at the training sessions and it turns out those recruits were at job interviews. Bloomberg's Sridhar Natarajan has more on the phenomenon known as 'on-cycle' recruitment. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cluely, a startup that helps ‘cheat on everything,' raises $15M from a16z
Cluely, a startup that claims to help users 'cheat' on job interviews, exams, and sales calls, has raised a $15 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, the company announced on Friday with a video posted on X. Two investors who were not part of the deal tell TechCrunch they believe Cluely's post-money valuation is around $120 million. Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment on that figure. Lee didn't respond to a request for comment. Cluely's new funding comes roughly two months after it raised $5.3 million in seed funding co-led by Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures. The startup was co-founded earlier this year by 21-year-old 'Roy' Lee and Neel Shanmugam, who were suspended from Columbia University for developing an undetectable AI-powered tool called 'Interview Coder' to help engineers cheat on technical interviews. Cluely is profitable, according to Lee's multiple posts on X and podcast appearances. Lee's provocative social media presence and highly produced controversial videos have helped to draw attention and create brand awareness for Cluely. In April, for example, as TechCrunch previously reported, Cluely published a slick but polarizing launch video of Lee using a hidden AI assistant to lie to a woman about his age, and even his knowledge of art, on a date at a fancy restaurant. Earlier this week, Cluely was hoping to throw a large party following Y Combinator's AI Startup School, a two-day event. But the police shut down the festivities after around 2,000 people tried to enter the venue, Lee told TechCrunch. 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
TechCrunch
20-06-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Cluely, a startup that helps ‘cheat on everything', raises $15M from a16z
Cluely, a startup that claims to help users 'cheat' on job interviews, exams, and sales calls, has raised a $15 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, the company announced on Friday with a video posted on X. Two investors who were not part of the deal tell TechCrunch they believe Cluely's post-money valuation is around $120 million. Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment on that figure. Lee didn't respond to a request for comment. Cluely's new funding comes roughly two months after it raised $5.3 million in seed funding co-led by Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures. The startup was co-founded earlier this year by 21-year-old 'Roy' Lee and Neel Shanmugam, who were suspended from Columbia University for developing an undetectable AI-powered tool called 'Interview Coder' to help engineers cheat on technical interviews. Cluely is profitable, according to Lee's multiple posts on X and podcast appearances. Lee's provocative social media presence and highly produced controversial videos have helped to draw attention and create brand awareness for Cluely. Earlier this week, Cluely was hoping to throw a large party following Y Combinator's AI Startup School, a two-day event. But the police shut down the festivities after around 2,000 people tried to enter the venue, Lee told TechCrunch.
The Guardian
13-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
People interviewed by AI for jobs face discrimination risks, Australian study warns
Job candidates having to conduct interviews with AI recruiters risk being discriminated against if they have non-American accents or are living with a disability, a new study has warned. This month, videos of job candidates interacting with at-times faulty AI video interviewers as part of the recruitment process have been widely shared on TikTok. This article includes content provided by TikTok. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. The use of AI video recruitment has grown in recent years. HireVue, an AI recruitment software company used by many employers, reported in February that, among 4,000 employers surveyed worldwide, AI use in hiring had risen from 58% in 2024 to 72% in 2025. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Australian research published this month estimates the use is significantly lower – about 30% in Australian organisations – but expected to grow in the next five years. However, the paper, by Dr Natalie Sheard, a University of Melbourne law school researcher, warns the use of AI hiring systems to screen and shortlist candidates risks discriminating against applicants, due to biases introduced by the limited datasets the AI models were trained on. In her research, Sheard interviewed 23 human resources professionals in Australia on their use of AI in recruitment. Of these, 13 had used AI recruitment systems in their companies, with the most common tool being CV analysis systems, followed by video interviewing systems. Datasets based on limited information that often favours American data over international data presents a risk of bias in those AI systems, Sheard said. One AI systems company featured in Sheard's research, for example, has said only 6% of its job applicant training data came from Australia or New Zealand, and 33% of the job applicants in the training data were white. The same company has said, according to the paper, that its word error rate for transcription of English-language speakers in the US is less than 10% on average. However, when testing non-native English speakers with accents from other countries, that error rate increases to between 12 and 22%. The latter error rate is for non-native English speakers from China. This article includes content provided by TikTok. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. 'The training data will come from the country where they're built – a lot of them are built in the US, so they don't reflect the demographic groups we have in Australia,' Sheard said. Research participants told Sheard that non-native English speakers or those with a disability affecting their speech could find their words not being transcribed correctly, and would then not be rated highly by the recruitment algorithm. This prompted two of the participants to seek reassurance from their software vendor that it did not disadvantage candidates with accents. Sheard said they were given reassurances that the AI was 'really good at understanding accents' but no evidence was provided to support this. Sign up to Afternoon Update Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Sheard said there was little to no transparency around the AI interview systems used, for potential recruits, the recruiter, or the employer. 'This is the problem. In a human process, you can go back to the recruiter and ask for feedback, but what I found is recruiters don't even know why the decisions have been made, so they can't give feedback,' she said. 'That's a problem for job seekers … It's really hard to pick where liability lies, but absolutely vendors and employers are legally liable for any discrimination by these systems.' There had yet to be a case of AI discrimination that reached the courts in Australia yet, Sheard said, with any discrimination issues needing to go to the Australian Human Rights Commission first. In 2022, the federal merit protection commissioner revealed 11 promotion decisions in Services Australia in the previous year had been overturned, after the agency outsourced the process to a recruitment specialist which used AI automated selection techniques including psychometric testing, questionnaires and self-recorded video responses. It was found that the selection process 'did not always meet the key objective of selecting the most meritorious candidates'. Sheard said the returned Albanese Labor government should look to a specific AI act to regulate the use of AI, and potentially strengthen existing discrimination laws to guard against AI-based discrimination.
