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I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

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Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#151

Post by data-ottawa »

kermatt wrote: post #117

I encountered two of these in a recent search, and they put me off so badly that I started ignoring subsequent opportunities that started off like this. I don't mind written Q&A as part of a screening, but AI interactions, via voice or text, seem very unsuitable for the task of identifying candidates. The questions were non-specific, I was cut off mid sentence (voice prompts), and although the systems were supposed t…

Having recently experienced talking to AI voice bots (for customer support, not for interviewing), it's bizzare that you don't know what they know and they're just making up.

If you ask "Will the role expect me to XYZ" the bot probably only has limited context from a job posting 1 pager, so you can't actually trust it or try to align with it's goals/experiences.

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#152

Post by mistrial9 »

encom wrote: post #115
hunterpayne wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why would this be the case? Maybe the solution is to ban AI from the hiring process. This seems like companies being hoisted by their own petard. This is because they are the ones who drove the hiring market to be this way. They are the ones who started using AI in the hiring process. They are the ones who decided to make applying so much work driving applicants to use AI to survive. Also, if you are having troub…

You have invented micro-payments, which has never worked, ever.

micro-payments were sabotaged by existing financial interests on multiple levels

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#153

Post by hansvm »

tharkun__ wrote: post #135
YesBox wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applicants are using AI too. I've heard from people who hire/post jobs that they gets hundreds to low thousands of applications, and maybe 5% of them have any relevant experience. The problem is the breakdown of trust is costing all of us.

Using AI for what and is it bad or good? At this point, we think using AI and being able to use AI effectively is a skill in and of itself. When you're hired, you'll have access to AI. You'd be expected to be able to use said AI effectively. So, we still give you a FizzBuzz. You can use AI. Even if we told you not to use AI, we know almost everyone would use AI. But you have to understand the FizzBuzz and be able to…

It's been a year since I've actively given out take-homes for hiring, but I'm not sure I agree that everyone will use AI. I designed half the questions to be impossible for current-gen AI to answer without the candidate actually knowing what's going on [0], and only ~1% of candidates who responded did poorly on that half and not the other half (and, if we're worried about LLMs being better than I think, not all that many candidates passed most questions either).

[0] The most reliable strategy I've found for that is choosing questions where the wrong answer is the right answer for some much more common question. Actually spending a few seconds and solving the problem easily lets a human pass, but an LLM with insufficient weights or training data (all of them) doesn't stand a chance.

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#154

Post by [deleted] »

deathanatos wrote: post #56
RobotToaster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Require paper application. If someone has to pay for a stamp it will stop spam applications.

… needing to pay for postage hardly stops the spam I receive in my own mail. Even the most trivially absurd stuff, like "install rooftop solar" — I don't own a roof.

[deleted]

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#155

Post by RobRivera »

toomanyrichies wrote: post #100
JohnFen wrote: post #2

> If your potential employer is dehumanizing you before you’re on the payroll, how will they treat you once hired? For me, this is the key point. If a company can't even be bothered to show up for my interview -- when everyone is trying to put their best foot forward -- that bodes very ill for how I'll be treated if I were to work there.

Indeed- if they'll hire you via AI, they're likely to fire you via AI, when the time inevitably comes.

At that point just send an email with attachments for regular outprocessing information

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#156

Post by data-ottawa »

pedalpete wrote: post #35

I have a friend who was working in this space in 2019. Their customers were hiring something like 10k jobs worldwide annually, which means 500k+ applications to go through. AI was used for the first filter to get a person through to later rounds. It makes sense at that scale, and not for "hiring" but just to make decisions as to who gets to the next round. The alternative is that you end up having to hire so many peo…

Realistically there's a point where you haven't interviewed enough people and another when you've interviewed so many you're wasting time.

Do you need the global optimum candidate, or do you need a very good candidate? If you need the global best then you're probably better off headhunting than posting a job listing.

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#157

Post by jjmarr »

acheron wrote: post #101
hunterpayne wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional certifications have a terrible reputation for good reason. You are perhaps too young to know why this is a silly idea. But its been tried and it failed spectacularly.

It works in essentially every other profession. Programming isn’t that special.

In essentially every other profession the credential is gated behind years of work experience and often a degree or course.

We already have such a credential. It's called "lasting two years at a FAANG+ without getting fired". If you do that you can get interviews anywhere.

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#158

Post by crobertsbmw »

hansvm wrote: post #146
nitwit005 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the issue isn't seeming inhuman, but cost. Employers often seem happy to impose rediculous time costs on the people they're hiring: take home tests, long series of interviews, etc. What held that back is they also paid a price. Full automation leaves them free to impose infinite cost with no guarantee of anything.

The last time I was hiring I gave out a take-home test, and I thought it was the opposite of an imposition on candidates' time. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts: - It was designed to be fast to complete (20min max -- not a huge imposition if being hired is likely, obviously very expensive if you're taking one for every job posting). - I only gave them out after a resume screen. If you had a 0% chance then I didn'…

That seems reasonable. Some employers will hand out 3-6 hour assignments after a candidate’s resumes make it through an AI screening.

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#159

Post by hexaga »

slumberlust wrote: post #113
YesBox wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applicants are using AI too. I've heard from people who hire/post jobs that they gets hundreds to low thousands of applications, and maybe 5% of them have any relevant experience. The problem is the breakdown of trust is costing all of us.

The companies have made this bed. They are upset its finally a mor even playing field.

Everyone is upset because the situation is a trash fire.

Re: I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

#160

Post by heavyset_go »

hansvm wrote: post #146
nitwit005 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the issue isn't seeming inhuman, but cost. Employers often seem happy to impose rediculous time costs on the people they're hiring: take home tests, long series of interviews, etc. What held that back is they also paid a price. Full automation leaves them free to impose infinite cost with no guarantee of anything.

The last time I was hiring I gave out a take-home test, and I thought it was the opposite of an imposition on candidates' time. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts: - It was designed to be fast to complete (20min max -- not a huge imposition if being hired is likely, obviously very expensive if you're taking one for every job posting). - I only gave them out after a resume screen. If you had a 0% chance then I didn'…

For every "20 min max" take home assignment, there will be people who are willing to spend 4+ hours doing it to outshine candidates who have jobs, families and lives.

If you want to make it more of a fair consideration of time, consider moving your take home to interviews, that way there isn't a time cost asymmetry. You can enforce your "20 min max" claim this way, you can judge a candidate's performance, thought process and filter out anyone who is LLMing or spending inordinate amounts of time on them.

You will also make a better impression on candidates by investing your time in them in the same way they are with you. Maybe you're hiring kids out of college without experience, but you only have to do so many take home tests before you realize that they're a waste of time, and pass on potential employers who throw them at you, or you learn to just send them your hourly rate for the test.

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