Why companies should not use AI for interviews or for pre-hire assessments.

In my current job search I’ve noticed how some companies have began to implement AI and I do not like it. You are trying to impress a robot, who does not meet a person, but a faulty human who may have certain quirks in their personality when speaking, but who probably can still succeed and do the job well. But no one will know that, because AI is already judging them more harshly than probably a human would.

Amazon — has a pre assessment, where they give you a video to respond to and you give an answer on how you would respond to a co-worker and then AI evaluates you answers to determine if you will move forward in the hiring process. When I was completing this, I could not help but wonder, my poor mom would not be able to answer or relay this assessment well. (She is not tech-savvy and she jumbles her words when she gets nervous). Its borderline discrimination against people who are older and who may have ADHD, dyslexia, or technology anxiety.

Olive Garden — when applying for their jobs, has you talking with the AI “Olivia”. She asks for all your information via a chat box, and you fill it out step by step while she confirms every response to be accurate before moving forward to the next question. Olivia then submits your application and asks which day works for you to come in for an interview. No one calls you back, no one tells you any details, except the address that you need to show up to, and it feels cold. It feels, like I am not worthy of human interaction. And if you want to rescind your offer you have to go through Olivia again.

Government Jobs (Working for the city) — some cities have begun to use HireVue which uses AI analysis to evaluate your written responses.

But in the past HireVue was using biometric data to analyze what you were saying via body language.

The use of AI being used for the most part does not make me want to work for those companies. I rescinded my offer to all three.

I’ve also come across some people sharing their experiences being interviewed by AI and there’s mixed reviews, some people like it but some do not.

I am opposed to AI and I relate to a user on LinkedIn who said, “I will simply not degrade myself to the point of being interviewed by a virtual AI assistant. I just flat out refuse. I’m actually very tempted to develop an AI dummy that could perform the interview for me. AI interviewing AI.” (I do not want to put him on blast, so if you have LinkedIn, you can just search the quote to read the full post)

A Reddit user said, “ No facial reactions, no follow-up questions, no sense of whether I was connecting. Just me, trying to sound confident while wondering if tone, word choice, or even eye contact mattered to a machine.”

Laura Smith on Glassdoor said, “I just had my first AI interview. I was impressed. The questions were good, and it gave me all the time I needed to answer. I had to click a button when had completed each question. I don’t know how I rated in the end, but I was not as turned off as I thought I would be.”

Though I understand that is may seem productive for some companies in saving time, its actually discriminatory and almost demeaning to who we are as people, we are people meant to work with people. We are not people, who are going to go work for robots.

As someone who believes AI is helpful for helping humans, for the most part humans like to talk to humans, not an AI robot. Which is why when I call business and it says, “How can I help you today.” I immediately say, “Customer service.”

I am going to update this story later with examples of all the dangers of allowing companies to have you image right via video AI interviews and how it will lead to high numbers of fraud and identity theft.

I wanted to add that Best Buy, CHASE, FedEx & Macy’s have been added to this list.

I want to keep updating this list as more and more companies beign to use it so that I can say, “I told you so” when they get a data breach and people’s moral rights and image rights are used as deepfakes for IDs, causing a snowball effect of identity theft that can take you across the sea to other counties not in the U.S.