Being prepared to be interviewed by AI:

In recent weeks I have been spending time with university students that are currently studying at UTS where their involvement in Optik Consultancy has seen them gain experience working on real-life projects with real businesses.

I gave advice to them on searching for jobs, interviewing, CV preparation and also all round business acumen and responsibility. A major question I got time after time was regarding AI-related interviews, so within this article, I will try to inform you about the different types of AI-related interviews and how to best prepare for them.

On a quick Google search, there are 28 AI recruiting startups in Australia, which is a clear indicator that AI in recruitment is here to stay and may mean it is necessary to change our approach and mindsets before entering into a recruitment process with organisations that are making use of such technologies.

Below are some of the major applications of AI in recruitment, including the following:

• AI-powered physical interviews
• Background checking
• Reference checking
• Recruitment from an internal talent pool
• Identifying talent gaps and assessing working teams
• Rerouting talent
• New employee onboarding

*This article has been written through the voice of Callum Grieve some reference articles include - Havard Business Review, Are you Prepared to Be Interviewed by an Ai by Zahira Jaser and Dimitra Petrakaki & Unleash ai 7 effective uses of AI in Recruitment.

Being prepared to be interviewed by AI:

Firstly you need to understand which type of automated video interview you’ll be encountering, the image below indicates five different examples:

Remember that the technology is far from perfect or unbiased, and practising being as human as possible — even when it feels awkward.

1. Practice, practice, practice
2. Research the company you are interviewing with and if they utilise AI software.
3. Google is your friend in this instance, In most large corporations, you will be able to find information on their recruiting processes and people's prior experience. - use this to your advantage
4. AVI’s and how to overcome them? - some Automated videos don’t incorporate AI they are simply a recorded video which is later assessed by a human.
5. Key words to look for in any email correspondence between the hiring company to yourself: Machine learning, predictive analytics, decision algorithms, recommendation engines, or data driven-decision. ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
6. If you see this outlined, be prepared for some form of AI Automation within the interview.
7. Within these types of meetings, the AI will collect data points to verify that the candidates they are screening are what they are looking for. They would be reviewing things such as Voice, Visual, and Verbal nuances.
8. For these models to work, they have to be trained with huge sets of data inputting from previous recruitment processes and information the organisation believes to be the most important skills and characteristics for the role.
9. Some of the most difficult challenges you will face with AI lead interviews will be the “Non humanised” element of the interview facing back at you will be your own face and no cues or direction on whether you are doing well.?
10. Judged theory: looks at how the candidates believe they are inferior to the technology and, therefore, become “Judged” by what they say in their responses and not being their true selves.
11. To overcome such feelings as nervousness or anxiety, the best method is practice, practice, practice. Trying to be yourself as much as possible is a difficult task, I know, but you aren’t going to know 100% of how the AI Model has been trained, so you can only work with what is in front of you at the time. The key to this is understanding your environment and being best prepared for what you are going to be put through, so this could mean putting yourself in front of a screen and getting into roleplay mode, practising with friends or family over a video phone call, doing the same into a switched off screen and finally recording yourself on video and playing back to analyse where you thought you did well and where you could improve.

Let’s remember that AI technology is relatively new in the recruitment space, and everyone is still learning, so be kind to yourself. Humans make mistakes, as do robots, so being flexible, adaptable and open to what is in front of you when interviewing will best serve you.