When Wafa Shafiq realized her upcoming job interview would be conducted by an artificial intelligence bot, she thought: Why not?
“I thought it’d be really cool. I wanted to try it,” said Shafiq.
Alex, an AI bot powered by software company Aprioria, interviewed the 26-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., for a marketing position at a retirement insurance agency.
It asked her about herself and her experience for 30 minutes. It acknowledged her responses and complimented them before asking a followup question.
“I was shocked that it was asking such good followup questions,” Shafiq told CBC News. “My expectations had been lower.”
While some companies are turning to artificial intelligence to streamline their recruitment processes, some job candidates are concerned about how they’re being evaluated and losing the chance to connect with recruiters.
Companies are using AI hiring bots to screen, shortlist and talk to job candidates. Advocates say the technology frees up human workers from tedious tasks, but some applicants say it adds confusion to the process, and there are concerns about HR job losses.
This technology is still in the early phase, says Mike Shekhtman, senior regional director at Canadian employment agency Robert Half.
“As the technology improves, we will continue to see perhaps an acceleration.”
‘People thought we were crazy’
Ribbon, an AI-interviewer software company, is among the Canadian companies to have seen an opportunity in this market.
“A year ago, people thought we were crazy,” Arsham Ghahramani, Ribbon’s CEO, said in an interview.
In nine months, Ribbon has amassed 400 customers who now use its bot to conduct interviews.
Ghahramani and his team spent more than a year building and training their AI using publicly available interviews and voice datasets. They wanted their AI to show the right emotion and ask the right questions, he said.
But some candidates would prefer a human recruiter.
Missing the human touch
Maureen Green, a health technology consultant, was approached to do an interview for a position in a Canadian health-care company that uses AI to direct patient calls. She was told the interview would be done by the company’s own AI bot.
At first, Green, who lives in Vancouver, said she was impressed by the system, finding it spoke and acted similarly to a human.
“It really did feel like a conversation and it felt like it was listening.”
But what was scheduled to be a 30-minute interview ended up going for more than an hour, as the AI kept asking followup questions and showed no signs of drawing the interview to an end.
Not knowing what else to do, Green said she thanked the AI interviewer for its time.
“I said: ‘I’m so sorry, but it was wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much for the…
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