Christopher, a government contractor, found himself in a peculiar situation: applying to 700 jobs with no response, save for the AI recruiter Riley. After five failed attempts, Christopher decided to play a cheeky trick. He created a fake candidate, Don Dickner, using ChatGPT to mimic a human. In a 23-minute interview, ChatGPT answered every question, impressing Riley who promised to assess the application. Yet, just like the previous interviews, no human ever followed up.

Christopher’s experience is not unique. With 63% of job seekers encountering AI interviews, it’s clear that AI is increasingly involved in the recruitment process. While some see this as an efficient solution, others like Mark Monaghan believe that using AI on both sides is only logical. However, the frustration of not receiving any follow-up, despite the “perfect” responses, highlights the limitations of current AI technology.

In the future, as Monaghan suggests, bot-on-bot interviews might become the norm. This could lead to a scenario where companies use AI to screen candidates, and those candidates, in turn, use AI to prepare. The irony is that while AI might be designed to save time and effort, it could end up creating more work and frustration for everyone involved.

The use of AI in job interviews is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can help filter through a large number of candidates quickly. On the other hand, it can lead to a sense of disconnection and lack of personal touch, which are crucial in the job application process. The next logical step, as Christopher’s experiment demonstrates, might be to automate the entire process, but at what cost to the human experience?