Sat through a whole job interview that was graded by AI

Went in for a project manager role at a construction firm in Austin last month. They told me after the fact that my answers were being scored by some algorithm in real time. I felt like I was performing for a robot instead of talking to people. The AI flagged me as "low confidence" because I paused to think before answering a question about timelines. I didn't get the job, and I still don't know what the actual criteria was. The hiring manager couldn't even explain how the scoring worked when I asked. How do we even know these things are fair if the people using them don't understand them?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix5731mo ago

I lost an interview the same way back in 2021.

pat7811mo ago

200 people applied for that same role I was up for and I walked out feeling like I'd aced it. But the panel asked this weird hypothetical about handling a toxic coworker and I froze up trying to give some corporate answer. That day kind of flipped my whole view on interviews being about skill, it's really about how you vibe with the people in the room. I used to think prep work could fix everything but now I realize the nerves just get to you no matter what.

karenb971mo ago

My sister's company tried this AI scoring thing for a few months in 2022 and it was a DISASTER. They ended up ditching it because it kept marking people as "aggressive" for using hand gestures during video interviews. I think @phoenix573 is right that a lot of us have been burned by these weird new systems, but honestly? Sometimes a bad interview is just a bad interview. The AI might not have been the real problem if you were already freezing up on hypothetical questions about toxic coworkers.