Worst Interview Ever

[justaprogressive]

In late January, Tyler Jensen felt a brief rush of excitement. After months of job searching, the 40-year-old New York videographer received a text message from someone at a company he’d applied to online. The person introduced themself as Robyn, said they were a virtual recruiter (a statement Jensen took to mean that they were a remote employee tasked with sorting through online applications), and asked to set up a time for a phone call to discuss his candidacy. They also urged him to save their number in his phone as “Robyn Recruiter” so that he’d know when they were calling. When the time finally came for the interview, Jensen dressed up slightly, unsure if this might be a FaceTime call. But when he connected with Robyn, his heart sank as soon as he heard what he describes as a fake, Moviefone-type voice. “It was completely A.I., like that false optimistic, bubbly voice,” Jensen recalled. “You’re like, Wait a minute. What’s going on?”

Jensen is among an increasing number of job seekers who have found themselves being interviewed by A.I. programs as part of the recruiting process. Pitched by tech companies as a cost-efficient means of automating a laborious screening process typically done by an HR representative or recruiter, this A.I. software has the capability to “interview” hundreds of candidates, whom it can then recommend for further interviews with actual human beings. But for those on the other side of these chats, the experience of auditioning for a computer can feel somewhat surreal—and leave a rather unpleasant impression of a potential employer.

“It was the most uncomfortable, fake positivity performance that I’ve had to give because I wasn’t getting any feedback in real time,” Jensen said. “If I don’t necessarily know what you’re looking for, I don’t know how to give you what you want. Who is this for? What is this weeding out?”

Although A.I. job interviews have been happening since at least 2023, the trend has received a surge of attention in recent weeks thanks to several viral TikTok videos in which users share videos of their A.I. bots glitching. Although some of the videos were fakes posted by a creator whose bio warns that his content is “all satire,” some are authentic—like that of Kendiana Colin, a 20-year-old student at Ohio State University who had to interact with an A.I. bot after she applied for a summer job at a stretching studio outside Columbus. In a clip she posted online earlier this month, Colin can be seen conducting a video interview with a smiling white brunette named Alex, who can’t seem to stop saying the phrase “vertical-bar Pilates” in an endless loop.

https://slate.com/life/2025/05/jobs-ai-job-hiring-character-interview.html

[Bayard]

1. Wow....

Never had this on my dance card back in my recruiter days. I thought HR interviewers were impersonal!

I bet they have AI doing candidate sourcing now too.