
Developer Thinks He Can Cheat His Interview With AI, Recruiter’s Son Exposes The Truth
Artificial intelligence is slowly becoming an integral part of everyday life. It has begun to replace human tasks, and experts are anticipating a complete takeover of full-time jobs.
It has also become a tool to help people potentially land jobs. This IT recruiter was nearly fooled by an applicant, whom they later discovered used AI during the screening process.
As someone familiar with AI technology, the author was left in utter shock by what they unraveled. Read the entire story below.
Artificial intelligence is becoming widely used for many purposes
Image credits: westend61 / envato (not the actual photo)
An IT recruiter found out the extent of it during an interview with a candidate
Image credits: Wes Hicks / unsplash (not the actual photo)
The author later realized that the applicant was using AI to answer interview questions
Image credits: Numerous-Trust7439
Job recruiters and companies also use AI to screen candidates
The author’s shocked reaction upon learning that the candidate used AI to answer interview questions was surprising, considering it’s been an industrywide practice.
An October 2024 report by Resume Builder revealed that 70% of companies will hire employees using artificial intelligence in 2025. The report also revealed that 82% of companies already use AI to review résumés, while 40% use chatbots to communicate with applicants.
Resume Builder likewise notes that 36% of companies plan to use AI to onboard new employees and 19% to conduct interviews.
Experts like human experience technology professor Zahira Jaser recognize the downsides of AI interviews. Apart from eliminating the human element, she also pointed out the “existential dread” candidates go through, knowing they are interacting with a machine.
“People who have sat in these interviews find it difficult because they almost all fall into an existential dread when, at a very important time in your life, you’re not facing a human, and you’re not seeing cues coming to you,” Jaser told CBS MoneyWatch.
Self-education is necessary in accepting artificial intelligence as part of today’s world
Image credits: Wesley Tingey / unsplash (not the actual photo)
In 2023, several faculty members from Virginia Tech University’s College of Engineering weighed the pros, cons, and risks of artificial intelligence.
For mechanical engineering assistant professor Dylan Losey, AI can improve quality of life. However, he also pointed out that flawed systems may lead to potential biases and, at worst, influence our decision-making.
“I worry about the reality we have right now and how we integrate the amazing possibilities of artificial intelligence into human-centered systems,” Losey told the Virginia Tech Engineer magazine.
For computer science professor Eugenia Rho, improved communication with machines is a welcome upside. However, she also believes that increased technology dependence inhibits critical thinking and may lead to a loss of human connection.
While there are alarming possibilities in a world dominated by AI, some experts remain optimistic. For digital mental health specialist Smitri Joshi, proper self-education can help us use artificial intelligence to our advantage.
“It may require us to increase our awareness and educate ourselves about how to leverage it safely,” Joshi said in an interview with the American Psychological Association.
As shocking as it was for the author, it may be helpful for them to learn more about the technology and how to best utilize it to increase their job efficiency.
Commenters had mixed reactions to the story
Poll Question
How do you feel about job candidates using AI during interviews?
It's fair for both sides
It's deceptive
Not sure how I feel
It doesn't matter
They should get the Recruiter's AI and the Candidate's AI to just conduct the interview by themselves so the two people concerned can go off and do something more useful like grab a coffee or pay some bills
To everyone saying that the recruiters use AI so the candidates should, too, I ask, what will the candidates do when they get the job they aren't qualified for? If you need to ask AI how to answer a technical question, you're either applying for the wrong job, or setting expectations too high for yourself when you get the job. I know it's tough out there, but in my experience, people value honesty, and if you say you don't have experience in that one thing, but can cite other experience that you do have that is related, and a willingness to grow, it's better than giving a fake answer to get a job you don't know how to do.
As an IT orofessional, i routinely use google. I am a reallt nervios interviewee and somethings just fly out if my head ( what is order if parameters ?) . I know the logic behind the algorithm. But i have always thought IT interviews should contain a logic test too.
Load More Replies...What will the candidates do when they're perfectly qualified for the job but some random bot turns them down for {reasons}. It was bad enough being ghosted by companies, especially those who wanted to hire internally but had to go through the motions of wasting everybody's time, in the days before AI. Now? Treat your candidates like c**p and use unverified tech prone to misinterpretation and making up s**t (cutely called "hallucination"), don't be surprised if candidates use that sort of stuff back. For most of us, we just want a job and a fair chance to show ourselves, dammit, not to get screened by a machine and then pass several rounds of interviews and maybe some bizarre psychology thrown in designed to trick the person. This isn't a game, people, treat your potential employees with a bit of respect!
Honestly it's no different than how people have been getting into jobs under false pretenses for untold centuries. The whole thing of using AI to weed out bad actors is just yet another case of a Lensman arms race that does not end well for anyone. Ultimately the more they try to keep the poor fits from getting the job, the more they ensure that the good fits won't be selected and the bad fits will. Because the bad fits are playing a completely different game from the ones who actually can do the job. This exact same phenomenon is what led to Draconian DRM on software a decade ago which stopped piracy for maybe 6 months at max for any given title. The only people who actually suffered were the developers who spent so much money to put the DRM in, and the genuine paying customers who had to deal with the DRM locking them out of their own software for petty reasons.
A *huge* part of a technical skillset is knowing how to go about finding the answer. Programmers have used Google for years, it's like 20% of our jobs. Using AI isn't any different, as long as you know *when* to use it (some questions are harder than others to google) and can detect when it starts hallucinating things. And ignore everything it says that's irrelevant to you. And make sure you 100% understand why anything it gives you works, or debug it when it doesn't, and update it to match your actual requirements, etc etc. AI is not (yet) at the point where it can completely replace a competent programmer, but it's certainly one more tool in the toolbelt and I disagree that needing to look up the answer to technical questions is bad. In say, a take-home programming test that would be almost expected. I guess if they are asking you very basic questions and you *still* need to look them up, then that's a bad sign, but sometimes the recruiters don't choose their questions well either.
The company I work for does not have a HR department, individual department heads are responsible for recruitment for their departments but we do have a standardised recruitment policy. One of the things in that policy is that there is a single round of interviews and all interviews are done in person with the head of the department they will be working for. I am the head of Physiotherapy and I really like this process. It allows me to more fully assess the applicant and it also gives the applicant the ability to assess me and the department to see if they are happy working here. Our company has never done remote interviews or used AI in the recruitment process and has no plans to do so.
As someone who works with code every day and has been part of the interviewing process for new hires, I strongly prefer hiring people based on their methodology and work habits over syntax. If you can generate code via AI and adjust it to work well for practical use then that is a valuable skill IMO. The most important thing in this case is testing if they can actually explain what the code is doing. If they are blindly push AI code they don't understand into a codebase, then you will have a seriously dangerous situation on your hands
I recently encountered the AI interview. Told what to wear, what my background should look like and FFS! Keep eye contact with the effing camera! Sorry, but if you’re looking for someone good with people, you shouldn’t be looking for influencers. ATB (yep, I named them), using AI to save a few bucks won’t do you any favours in the long run. I may be quirky as a human but I’m dąmn good at what I do. Getting an interview was already tough enough. Getting through an interview with zero feedback is inhumane. I mean this literally! You’re setting yourselves up to only interview folks who do well on camera. I don’t. And I don’t plan on ever being so fake that a camera is more important than dealing with actual people.
Recruiter uses AI to cull prospective employees. Prospective employees use AI to fool recruiter. Pikachu face.
AI should never have been made , it has no use only to make humans obsolete so as one said you all made your bed enjoy lying in it !
Why is this a shock? I use AI for almost all my college work, now i have a 3.5 average!
So you're paying thousands of dollars to not learn anything? That doesn't actually seem smart.
Load More Replies...That's unfortunate that you find that necessary, but I don't entirely blame you. A lot of assignments seem poorly designed or full of pointless busy work that isn't reviewed by the instructor anyway. I'm very grateful that I had the incredible privilege to attend a small university with tiny class sizes that emphasized individual learning. But one of the greatest lessons I learned from my education is you only get out of it what you put in. I hope you're still getting a good educational experience out of your time there! Learning how to effectively incorporate AI into your work will be an important skill in many fields.
They should get the Recruiter's AI and the Candidate's AI to just conduct the interview by themselves so the two people concerned can go off and do something more useful like grab a coffee or pay some bills
To everyone saying that the recruiters use AI so the candidates should, too, I ask, what will the candidates do when they get the job they aren't qualified for? If you need to ask AI how to answer a technical question, you're either applying for the wrong job, or setting expectations too high for yourself when you get the job. I know it's tough out there, but in my experience, people value honesty, and if you say you don't have experience in that one thing, but can cite other experience that you do have that is related, and a willingness to grow, it's better than giving a fake answer to get a job you don't know how to do.
As an IT orofessional, i routinely use google. I am a reallt nervios interviewee and somethings just fly out if my head ( what is order if parameters ?) . I know the logic behind the algorithm. But i have always thought IT interviews should contain a logic test too.
Load More Replies...What will the candidates do when they're perfectly qualified for the job but some random bot turns them down for {reasons}. It was bad enough being ghosted by companies, especially those who wanted to hire internally but had to go through the motions of wasting everybody's time, in the days before AI. Now? Treat your candidates like c**p and use unverified tech prone to misinterpretation and making up s**t (cutely called "hallucination"), don't be surprised if candidates use that sort of stuff back. For most of us, we just want a job and a fair chance to show ourselves, dammit, not to get screened by a machine and then pass several rounds of interviews and maybe some bizarre psychology thrown in designed to trick the person. This isn't a game, people, treat your potential employees with a bit of respect!
Honestly it's no different than how people have been getting into jobs under false pretenses for untold centuries. The whole thing of using AI to weed out bad actors is just yet another case of a Lensman arms race that does not end well for anyone. Ultimately the more they try to keep the poor fits from getting the job, the more they ensure that the good fits won't be selected and the bad fits will. Because the bad fits are playing a completely different game from the ones who actually can do the job. This exact same phenomenon is what led to Draconian DRM on software a decade ago which stopped piracy for maybe 6 months at max for any given title. The only people who actually suffered were the developers who spent so much money to put the DRM in, and the genuine paying customers who had to deal with the DRM locking them out of their own software for petty reasons.
A *huge* part of a technical skillset is knowing how to go about finding the answer. Programmers have used Google for years, it's like 20% of our jobs. Using AI isn't any different, as long as you know *when* to use it (some questions are harder than others to google) and can detect when it starts hallucinating things. And ignore everything it says that's irrelevant to you. And make sure you 100% understand why anything it gives you works, or debug it when it doesn't, and update it to match your actual requirements, etc etc. AI is not (yet) at the point where it can completely replace a competent programmer, but it's certainly one more tool in the toolbelt and I disagree that needing to look up the answer to technical questions is bad. In say, a take-home programming test that would be almost expected. I guess if they are asking you very basic questions and you *still* need to look them up, then that's a bad sign, but sometimes the recruiters don't choose their questions well either.
The company I work for does not have a HR department, individual department heads are responsible for recruitment for their departments but we do have a standardised recruitment policy. One of the things in that policy is that there is a single round of interviews and all interviews are done in person with the head of the department they will be working for. I am the head of Physiotherapy and I really like this process. It allows me to more fully assess the applicant and it also gives the applicant the ability to assess me and the department to see if they are happy working here. Our company has never done remote interviews or used AI in the recruitment process and has no plans to do so.
As someone who works with code every day and has been part of the interviewing process for new hires, I strongly prefer hiring people based on their methodology and work habits over syntax. If you can generate code via AI and adjust it to work well for practical use then that is a valuable skill IMO. The most important thing in this case is testing if they can actually explain what the code is doing. If they are blindly push AI code they don't understand into a codebase, then you will have a seriously dangerous situation on your hands
I recently encountered the AI interview. Told what to wear, what my background should look like and FFS! Keep eye contact with the effing camera! Sorry, but if you’re looking for someone good with people, you shouldn’t be looking for influencers. ATB (yep, I named them), using AI to save a few bucks won’t do you any favours in the long run. I may be quirky as a human but I’m dąmn good at what I do. Getting an interview was already tough enough. Getting through an interview with zero feedback is inhumane. I mean this literally! You’re setting yourselves up to only interview folks who do well on camera. I don’t. And I don’t plan on ever being so fake that a camera is more important than dealing with actual people.
Recruiter uses AI to cull prospective employees. Prospective employees use AI to fool recruiter. Pikachu face.
AI should never have been made , it has no use only to make humans obsolete so as one said you all made your bed enjoy lying in it !
Why is this a shock? I use AI for almost all my college work, now i have a 3.5 average!
So you're paying thousands of dollars to not learn anything? That doesn't actually seem smart.
Load More Replies...That's unfortunate that you find that necessary, but I don't entirely blame you. A lot of assignments seem poorly designed or full of pointless busy work that isn't reviewed by the instructor anyway. I'm very grateful that I had the incredible privilege to attend a small university with tiny class sizes that emphasized individual learning. But one of the greatest lessons I learned from my education is you only get out of it what you put in. I hope you're still getting a good educational experience out of your time there! Learning how to effectively incorporate AI into your work will be an important skill in many fields.
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