Where did the human go?
AI in Recruitment and the Interview Experience
I recently came across something during my job search that made me stop and think.
I was asked to complete a video interview before I had spoken to a single human being.
Not a video call with a recruiter.
Not a telephone screening.
A video interview with a bot.
And honestly? I hated it.
I understand why organisations are doing it. Recruitment can be time-consuming. There can be hundreds of applications for a single vacancy, and technology can help organisations manage that volume.
AI can undoubtedly have a place in recruitment. But I think we need to be very careful about where we draw the line. Because somewhere along the way, I think we have started taking the human out of Human Resources.
I'm not opposed to AI
Let's be clear: this isn't an argument that AI has no place in recruitment.
There are plenty of tasks where AI and automation can save HR professionals significant amounts of time.
Administrative tasks.
Scheduling.
Sorting information.
Identifying patterns.
Helping recruiters manage large volumes of applications.
Used appropriately, technology can free HR professionals to spend more time with people, not less. That's the bit I think we sometimes get wrong. If AI saves me three hours of administration, fantastic. I'd rather spend those three hours actually speaking to candidates.
But interviewing is different
An interview isn't just an organisation assessing whether I have the skills for a job.
I'm assessing you too.
I'm trying to understand your culture.
Your people.
Your values.
How you communicate.
Whether I can see myself working there.
And you're asking me to give you something quite personal: me.
My experience.
My personality.
My communication style.
My motivations.
My ambitions.
So when the first interaction I have with your organisation is a bot asking me questions into my webcam, something feels fundamentally missing.
Where is the conversation?
Where is the opportunity to ask a question?
Where is the ability to build rapport?
Where is the person?
Recruitment is a two-way relationship
This is the bit I think organisations sometimes forget.
Yes, you are assessing me. But I'm assessing you.
When I apply for a role, I am investing my time and effort into your organisation.
I research you. I tailor my application. I prepare for your interview. I think about how my experience could contribute to your organisation. I'm putting me, the human, into your recruitment process.
I think you should be doing the same.
Because recruitment is often the first real experience someone has of your organisation. And that experience is a reflection of your business.
If your organisation tells me that people are at the heart of everything you do, but my first interaction with you is an automated video assessment analysed by an algorithm, I might reasonably question whether those values actually exist beyond the careers page.
And what happens to the nervous candidate?
There is another side to this that concerns me.
Interviews are already intimidating for many people.
Some people are brilliant at their jobs but terrible at selling themselves in an interview.
Some candidates are nervous.
Some have never done a video interview before.
Some communicate better through conversation than through answering a series of questions to a camera with no human reaction on the other side.
A human interviewer can recognise that.
They can reassure someone.
They can ask a follow-up question.
They can notice when a candidate has misunderstood something and clarify it.
They can create a conversation.
A bot can't create the same human connection. And if we're using AI to make decisions about people, we need to be especially conscious of what we might be missing.
Efficiency shouldn't come at the expense of experience
I completely understand the pressure recruitment teams are under.
I've worked in HR.
I know how much administration recruitment can involve. I know how difficult it can be to manage large numbers of applicants alongside everything else HR is responsible for. But efficiency isn't the only measure of a good recruitment process.
Candidate experience matters too.
If technology makes recruitment faster but makes candidates feel like a number, have we actually improved the process? Or have we simply made it more efficient for the organisation?
Put the human back into Human Resources
Perhaps that's ultimately what I'm asking for.
Not an end to AI.
Not an end to automation.
Not a rejection of technology.
Just a little more humanity.
Use AI to reduce the administrative burden.
Use technology to make scheduling easier.
Use automation where it genuinely improves the experience.
But when someone has reached the point where you're seriously considering whether they could become part of your organisation, talk to them.
Have a conversation.
Let them meet a person.
Let them ask questions.
Let them experience your culture.
Let them see the humans behind the organisation.
Because if you want me to bring my whole self to work, I think the least you can do is bring a human being to the interview.
And maybe that's the irony of it all.
We're spending billions developing increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence, whilst simultaneously trying to solve one of the oldest problems in HR:
How do we understand people?
Sometimes, perhaps, the answer is still to simply talk to them.
Over to you
I'd love to hear what other HR professionals and candidates think.
Have you used AI or automated video interviews in your recruitment process?
Do you think they improve recruitment, or do they create distance between candidates and organisations?
Where do you think AI belongs in recruitment — administration, screening, interviewing, decision-making?
And perhaps most importantly: where should we draw the line?
I'd genuinely be interested to hear both sides.
Because AI is undoubtedly going to become a bigger part of recruitment.
The question is whether we allow it to replace the human element — or use it to give HR professionals more time to be human.