"Did AI Get My New Hire the Job, Not Her?"

"Someone on my team hired an APAC content manager last month. In hindsight, the interview went too well. Her answers were apparently good but scripted. That's not too unusual especially for junior roles, or this region.

Now she's started, I am told she's unable to write a brief without help, freezes when asked a question she should have no trouble with, and her output reads like it's from AI, when the whole reason we hired her was to avoid that. The hiring manager is now convinced she was reading off a screen the whole time during the interview and is a little annoyed they fell for it.

Have you encountered this before?"

Shia, London

Dear Shia,

To be fair, lots of people interview better than they perform. It happens all the time and you cannot get every hire right. We've all rushed or gambled on a hire, or simply got it wrong at some point.

But that said, it's entirely possible that this new hire was using AI during the interview process. It's happening. The problem is real. Some recruiters even have to question if what they are seeing is real as some candidates try to use AI video too.

Before anyone reaches for that conclusion though, the hiring manager should just ask her. Directly, honestly, how she prepared for the interview and what's going on now. It's a far more useful conversation than making assumptions and writing her off. If she was nervous and used AI to prepare, then I doubt it will take much to uncover the truth.

And it's worth genuinely considering the other explanations first. A new starter freezing on questions she should handle easily could just as easily be a sign of poor onboarding, nobody properly showing her the ropes, as it is a sign of AI fraud. If the team is intimidating or unwelcoming to someone new, that alone can make a capable person freeze in meetings. And there could be something going on in her personal life that nobody in that office knows about yet. Jumping straight to “she cheated” isn't particularly fair to her until those have actually been ruled out.

Is the use of AI in interviews to be considered a scam? Is it due to nerves and desperate candidates in a highly competitive market? Is it due to candidates simply having to apply for lots of jobs in the hope of getting one?

Talking to a couple of recruiters, they are having to react to the threat.

“Tell me about a time you handled a difficult stakeholder.” “How would you approach a launch.” “What's your process for prioritising work.” Generic, cookie-cutter, questions that we have become super accustomed to asking and receiving familiar answers to. But those are now the shape of questions that AI assistants have absolutely no problem answering, instantly.

So recruiters are proactively trying to evolve the questions. Put a real brief in front of someone, live, one they've never seen before, and ask them to talk you through it on the spot.

Ask what they'd actually do in week one if they encounter a specific problem and ask how they'd go about it, who they'd need to pull in and why, and push on the answer. None of that can be pre-loaded into a chatbot, because none of it exists until you say it out loud in the room. And if they did use AI, you know the answer would be a bit generic and shit and you'd be able to tell if they were reading it.

If your own hiring process leans on automated screening, templated questions, or one-way video interviews nobody properly watches, you've got very little ground to stand on when a candidate answers you with a shortcut too.

In summary, my answer to this problem is:

●      Ensure your recruitment process is more human, if you want more human responses

●      Put more effort into your questioning if you want to be more certain of candidates

●      Talk to people, before you make assumptions

It's becoming somewhat of a trend. The only way to counter bad uses of AI, is to revert back to being more human.

Onwards!