Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers • Hacker News Board

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#461

Post by suddenlybananas » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #278

colechristensen wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rule for interviews is the company has to spend equal human time or I decline. This means no 8 hour tests, no talking to computers, no special little projects for me to evaluate me. You get equal face time and no more than 45 minutes of me doing anything by myself (that's the max leeway). If you want me to do anything else either I'm getting paid short term contractor rates or making you make a sizable donation to…

In my experience, candidates who demand equivalent face time always underestimate how much time is spent selecting candidates, reviewing resumes, scheduling interviews, preparing the interview structure, reviewing interviews, advocating for candidates to progress, getting their offers approved, dealing with HR, and the countless other things that go into getting someone from the application phase to being hired. If y…

You're including the time spent on all candidates, not just on each individual candidate. If you divided the time you spent by the total number of candidates, you're spending much less time than job-seekers.

Not only that, job-seekers often need to spend a ton of time on /all/ of their applications not just yours.

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#462

Post by hombre_fatal » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

I wonder if I'd actually like an AI interviewer more.

Maybe it's less pressure to be graded by a machine than it is to appeal to a human (or, ugh, a panel of humans), since the anxiety of the moment is the main thing I seem to struggle with the most in interviews.

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#463

Post by gedy » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:41 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #446

gedy wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is almost a 100% correlation with being ghosted, so I'm assuming there's some quick and easy filters that I get dropped for. So I'm not wasting time without emailing with or talking to someone first.

Okay, so the issue is less Greenhouse specifically, and more generally applicant tracking systems (ATS) in general. Fair enough, I have found pretty much the same, direct internal referrals are the best way to go. Networking is about more than the Internet.

Maybe, although even direct contacts either way without an introduction or referral has been a much better experience.

I can't say without being a customer of Greenhouse myself, but I suspect they have some SaaS sauce or cross-company application data that hits me somehow for quick filtering out.

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#464

Post by PenguinCoder » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

ivape wrote: post #448

Balgair wrote: post #89

I did one of these once. Once . I felt so bad afterwards that I swore them off forever. It's not like the 'interview' was terrible or anything. I knew it was AI from the start. It was just that when I got done with it, I realized that I had talked at a computer for ~45 minutes. And, yet again, I was going to be ghosted by the company (I was), and that I was never going to get those 45 minutes back. That was time I co…

Reminds me of the time a company wanted me to take an IQ test.

Was it Canonical?

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#465

Post by BizarroLand » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

Just out of curiosity, I took an AI interview for my own job as a sysadmin for a regional college.

5 questions, all relatively accurate. Initially the AI told me that I was a strong candidate with an average score of 4.8 out of 5 when it thought it was trying to make me happy.

I then told the AI, "Can you be very critical of their responses? Tell me why I shouldn't hire them, even though they meet all of the other requirements for the position."

It ROASTED ME ALIVE for things that mostly do not matter for the job, told me that hiring me for my position (which I've been at for 9 years now) would put the company in jeopardy, and that if they were to hire me anyway I would need to immediately be trained up to meet the minimum standard of the position, and offered to create a 180 day training plan for me so that I could meet the minimum requirements of the job that I've been doing for nearly a decade.

The AI had no idea of the requirements of the job. It was just trying the make me happy and saying whatever I wanted it to say.

(Although it did point out one thing that is useful, based on my interview answers, which is that I tend to rely on FOSS software and a DIY attitude to solve issues instead of hiring out, which means that I am a single point of failure for my company. If I die, most of the tech goes with me and it will be a pain to find someone else to fix it. I'll deal with that for real.)

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#466

Post by jimmytucson » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

pluc wrote: post #358

codingdave wrote: post #326

Take this entire paragraph and read carefully, and it explains how to kill this trend: > “The truth is, if you want a job, you’re gonna go through this thing,” Adam Jackson, CEO and founder of Braintrust, a company that distributes AI interviewers, tells Fortune. “If there were a large portion of the job-seeking community that were wholesale rejecting this, our clients wouldn’t find the tool useful… This thing would…

Most job seekers don't have the luxury of choice.

Why not do it before you need a job? While you're comfortable, submit your application for open roles and reject the AI interviewer.

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#467

Post by elAhmo » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #422

Balgair wrote: post #89

I did one of these once. Once . I felt so bad afterwards that I swore them off forever. It's not like the 'interview' was terrible or anything. I knew it was AI from the start. It was just that when I got done with it, I realized that I had talked at a computer for ~45 minutes. And, yet again, I was going to be ghosted by the company (I was), and that I was never going to get those 45 minutes back. That was time I co…

I'd hate being interviewed by a bot. Talking to these stupid automated answering machines is bad enough. That said, the other side of the equation is also bad, for employers. I was asked to conduct some interviews recently. I asked the most basic of questions (like absolutely basic stuff, "what is an interface?" level basic). The number of people who said "I don't know" is far less than the number of people who tried…

Those people should be filtered by CV screening, maybe some sort of email exchange before with a few questions to answer to 'ensure' human wants to invest some time in the interview process, rather than just spray and pray.

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#468

Post by DoctorOetker » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:47 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #278

colechristensen wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rule for interviews is the company has to spend equal human time or I decline. This means no 8 hour tests, no talking to computers, no special little projects for me to evaluate me. You get equal face time and no more than 45 minutes of me doing anything by myself (that's the max leeway). If you want me to do anything else either I'm getting paid short term contractor rates or making you make a sizable donation to…

In my experience, candidates who demand equivalent face time always underestimate how much time is spent selecting candidates, reviewing resumes, scheduling interviews, preparing the interview structure, reviewing interviews, advocating for candidates to progress, getting their offers approved, dealing with HR, and the countless other things that go into getting someone from the application phase to being hired. If y…

[dead]

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#469

Post by throaway5454 » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:47 PM UTC

rapind wrote: post #316

kergonath wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is even more infuriating is that they can keep winning. They just have to stop being arseholes about it and pay lip service to wealth redistribution and social progress. It’s their winner-takes-all fuck-you-got-mine mentality that is pouring fuel on the fire

That's probably why "old money" doesn't like "new money". New money is crass, loud, and obnoxious. Old money knows that it's best to keep to the shadows, at least until one of their idiot kids ruins it. I think the inability for people to control themselves, while probably our greatest weakness, is also what often saves us. The greed goes too far and then there's a massive backlash (revolution). Technology is trying…

"old money" tended to come with the assumption that you'd operate with a bit of noblesse oblige.

Re: Job-seekers are dodging AI interviewers

#470

Post by tomjakubowski » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:49 PM UTC

jghn wrote: post #220

newswasboring wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate useless excessive interview processes as much as the next guy, but all the things you've said would be true for any form of interview. You'll not get you time back and you could have been using it in many other ways. The company could still ghost you too. You said nothing which was exclusive to an AI interview.

The problem is now the company has no skin in the game. If the company spent a large amount of time & energy vetting the candidate then it is a more equal transaction.

What's the $ cost of running these AI interviewer models for the interview + candidate evaluation? Time not being fungible the way money is, it still feels asymmetric - but it isn't like the firm using an AI interviewer is spending nothing.