### NAVIGATING THE FUTURE OF JOB INTERVIEWS: A CARTOON AI COULD BE YOUR NEXT INTERVIEWER

#### THE ADVENT OF AI IN RECRUITMENT

We might not be living in the movie Blade Runner with artificial intelligence (AI)-driven replicant humans, but if the past five years are any indication, an automated future of job interviews is certainly here. The application process for one job interview brought me to a login site, where I was greeted by an AI cartoon of a pre-pubescent Harry Potter. This isn’t a futuristic sci-fi novel; it is a reality created by micro1, an AI recruitment engine for engineers and one of the many US startups changing the face of the interview. micro1 is providing users with an automated, less painful, more fun and unbiased way to interview for jobs. As companies and job-seekers alike grapple with how recruitment can improve in the future, micro1 could be one of the first to drive the process forward.

#### THE RISE OF AI RECRUITMENT TOOLS

The field of employment is also seeing more use of AI tools, from job sites such as Indeed and LinkedIn utilising generative AI to enhance their product for both workers and recruiters, to various companies using AI to assist candidates with practising interview skills. Not everything with AI recruitment is rosy, either, as some AI hiring tools have been found to have gender and age bias, and have been known to neglect people in their algorithms who have taken employment gaps. Despite these issues, the ‘better screening’ promise of AI recruitment remains.

#### EFFICIENCY AND DIVERSITY THROUGH AI

Micro1’s AI interviewer Alex is evidence of both the efficiencies and the potential for diversity in recruitment that AI promises. The company’s founder, Ali Ansari, has said that its AI model screens candidates more effectively, helping it to tap an ‘under-screened but highly capable’ international pool of engineering talent. This is not only good news for companies needing to whittle down the number of CVs they receive, but it also allows people from areas far removed from the global tech hubs an opportunity to have their voices heard in Silicon Valley and beyond.

#### HUMAN VS. AI: STRIKING A BALANCE IN RECRUITMENT

Yet even if the allure of efficiency prevails, integrating AI in the recruiting process can prompt worries about bias and the inhumanity of conducting interviews asynchronously. Ansari says he understands these concerns, but believes that insofar as AI systems accurately reflect the true nature of candidate skills, they can eliminate bias better than humans can. The key, he says, is to focus not on making decisions but on categorising candidates according to a continuum of skill – providing human recruiters with more information on which to base their decisions.

#### CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD

Wherever the perfectly functional AI lies in the spectrum of this debate, the discussion of its role in recruitment is entangled with anxiety over bias, dehumanisation of employers, and the future place of humans in hiring. ‘We need to make sure [that] we’re not accumulating bias into algorithms,’ says Zahira Jaser, associate professor of human resource management at the University of Sussex Business School. She adds that the switch to AI would require continuous monitoring of how such tools are trained and whether they really help diversify the workforce.

#### IMAGINING THE FUTURE OF AI IN JOB INTERVIEWS

In the near future, AI has the potential to completely reshape the way recruitment works. Ansari predicts that one day, soon, it might not be unheard of for job seekers to be interviewed by an AI interviewer, through an AI avatar, in a process that’s more efficient, more focused, and better at matching companies with the right candidates. ‘They can skip all the hassle and get to the good bits at the end,’ she said.

### ABOUT OPEN

Open in this context relates not just to the literal openness of jobs or opportunities – it comprises the open way in which new ways of working with AI technologies could potentially transform familiar processes. In the next chapters of the AI future, openness in recruitment could well entail a more reciprocal embrace of AI technologies and methods for transforming the practice of recruitment. The profile of AI’s journey into the job interview is, in fact, part of a larger move towards a more open technology, towards hiring that’s more inclusive, and towards a more innovative practice of human resources in companies worldwide. When we’re walking in the open, the whole world is our oyster – for the job-seeker and the hiring company alike.