s AI and ML are getting more ubiquitous technologies, they have now penetrated the recruitment and hiring space and are increasingly getting more common elements of the candidate-selection process. Although this is not a monolithic application of this emerging technology, its use is increasingly pervading different stages of the overall candidate selection process.

For example, the first application of this AI/ML was in the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), where résumés are screened, scored, and ranked for a manual review of the top-ranking résumé submittals for a job. Early versions (ATS 1.0) relied on key-words match and scored them by their frequency and relevance. Then came ATS 2.0, which looked at the evolution of one’s career and contextually scored the risk of hiring a particular candidate based on their history.

For the past few years ATS 3.0 algorithms have included AI/ML elements to allow employers to assess the hiring risk (false positives) using some of the historical and anecdotal learning a particular employer has in their background. Also, there are some generic trends that can be incorporated that apply to certain verticals, industries, and geographies. Although none of these are perfected yet in any way, their inexorable trend is now leading to increasingly greater reliance on machine-based selection process, which can be disconcerting to some.

The combination of ATS 3.0 and now the selection interviews by video robots has now become increasingly more pervasive and within the next few years may become commonplace. In its current evolution many F-500 companies have adopted the robot interviews as a part of their candidate selection process and according to a recent WSJ article by Jason Bellini (Dec. 16, 2018) some 50 such companies and others have started integrating this robot interview tool as a part of their mainstream candidate selection process.

So, what are some of the pros and cons of this interview-by-robot step and what are some tips to sail through this intimidating interview modality? Here is my take:

Pros:

1. The main objective of introducing robots in the interview process is to reduce the inherent bias that is often blamed when interviews with humans are staged. Age, accent, gender, culture, and many other factors can vitiate a typical interview because humans carry subconscious biases resulting in too high a false negative rate (rejecting good hires). Since the robots are programmed to not to just look at the oral responses (language) of the candidate the screening process can be more objective. The robots are trained to look at the facial expressions and subtle changes in how different facial expressions—micro-expressions—are captured during the exchanges are at the heart of how robot interviews are scored. Although the science of capturing micro-expressions is still in its early stages, a combination of other factors can help make the selection process more robust.
2. Speed and consistency of each interview can help make the selection process more efficient and objective for both sides.
3. For the employer it can free-up hiring managers’ time and make them more efficient in their everyday workflow.
4. Save time for both; the candidate and the employer. Nearly 50% of scheduled human interviews do not start on time for a variety of reasons, which also includes not taking the time to complete a scheduled interview. Typical reasons are meeting interruptions, urgent phone calls, and fire drills. In my own case whenI was looking for a job, I had traveled to interview at an East Coast company some 30 years back and 10 minutes into an important interview a fire drill was unannounced. This disrupted that interview and nearly 45 minutes were wasted going through that drill, leaving only about 20 minutes for the interview. They did not call me back after that.
5. Some systems provide the candidate an instant score right on the screen at the end of the interview. So, if you score low you can forget about any further steps you may otherwise have to take, wondering if you made the cut.
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Cons

1. Interacting with a robot can be intimidating to many candidates and their performance during the interview may reflect that anxiety in their responses and in their micro-expressions.
2. The entire process is in its nascent stage and evolving. So, during the next few years, until the process become more reliable and repeatable both sides can have many false negatives.
3. Employers scan program their robots to discriminate in subtle ways and this can be much more difficult to spot when robots are used as human proxies.
4. Different vendors use different selection algorithms, so for two identical openings the same candidate many be rejected by one and not the other employer, depending on which vendor’s system a particular employer uses.
5. Unlike in a human-facing interview a candidate cannot go back to revisit a response later to a question for which they may have a better response as the interview unfolds.

These are just some of the cons that may vitiate the selection process for both sides, making it less effective.

Increasing use of automation and robots in the candidate-selection process is inevitable as the technology’s march continues. It is best to get used this inevitable reality and learn how to deal with it effectively to protect your career progression.

Good luck!