Your AI interviewer will see you now: How job seekers should navigate the ‘jarring’ new hiring technology

Your AI interviewer will see you now: How job seekers should navigate the 'jarring' new hiring technology. Employers are hoping that AI interviewers will streamline the hiring process. Some experts — and job seekers — aren't so sure.

What happened

Skip NavigationRelated StoriesWorkSome job seekers 'time travel' to cram more AI skills onto LinkedIn profilesWorkAI is making a mess of how humans interact at workWorkWorkers can't agree if junior employees should use AI at work: CNBC surveyWorkUse the '10/10' rule to land a job: It's like tapping into 'the hidden job market,' says career coachWorkUse this 4-word phrase to stand out after a job interview: 'It can be really powerful,' says career coachFor both job seekers and employers, AI has already permeated almost every step of the hiring process, from evaluating resumes to writing cover letters.

Rather than hopping on a phone or Zoom call with a human recruiter, candidates are increasingly being asked to speak with an AI interviewer as the first step in the hiring process. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of 2,950 active job seekers surveyed by Greenhouse, a hiring platform and applicant tracking system, say they have been interviewed by AI. Demand for AI hiring tools like AI interviewers has increased "pretty exponentially" in recent months, says Dina Taylor, chief evangelist at HireVue, a virtual interviewing, recruiting and hiring platform.

" Alisa Stern | CNBC Make itOnce they've reviewed the AI interviewer's report, the hiring manager can decide which candidates will advance to the next round – which usually, in Kibben's experience, involves a human-to-human conversation. In Nolan-Raygoza's experience, job seekers are keenly attuned to an interviewer's "micro expressions," such as a smile or a nod, or a furrowed brow. Many job seekers worry that AI interviewers may have built-in biases regarding race, ethnicity, age, gender or manner of speaking.

The wider picture

Some video-based AI interviewers ask candidates to maintain consistent eye contact, which can be particularly difficult for neurodivergent job seekers, according to Kaiser. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/ReutersAnalysis‘Too little, too late’: critics perplexed and suspicious of AI leaders’ call for a slowdownRobert Booth UK technology editorFrom the Trump administration to AI experts, plans by the Anthropic boss to boost safety have spawned a largely negative response OpenAI boss and Elon Musk back slowdown on ‘reckless’ AI development Editorial: controlling AI – humanity cannot outsource its survival The safety debate that ignited when whistleblowers last week warned that the most advanced AI poses an existential threat to humanity should come with a health warning: side effects include whiplash.

That number grew 13% from the previous six months, according to the April 2026 report, which surveyed job seekers from the U. Some AI interviewers are faceless bots that simply ask questions through audio or text. Either way, many candidates are struggling to adapt to the new technology, according to Katrina Kibben, a recruiting consultant and job post copywriter based in Rockford, Illinois. HireVue debuted a voice-based AI interviewer in June 2026. By deploying AI interviewers, companies are largely hoping to save money and time, according to Kathleen Nolan-Raygoza, a senior technical recruiter with almost a decade of experience.

Nolan-Raygoza's current employer does not use AI interviews in its hiring process.

What has been reported

Due to layoffs in recent years, hiring and recruiting teams also tend to be smaller, she says, which makes it "nearly impossible" for them to manually screen all applicants. Human recruiters "don't have the scale and the time to interview thousands of people in a week, whereas that's really what the AI interviewer is designed to do," according to Taylor. "It can be very jarring to hop on a call and either see a bot or an avatar," Nolan-Raygoza says.

Afterwards, the software sends the hiring manager a transcript of the meeting and a personalized evaluation of the candidate, which can include a short summary of the conversation, a rubric scoring how well they match the job requirements, an assessment of the candidate's interview performance and a final overall score or ranking. Taylor emphasizes that the characteristics an AI interviewer screens for "are dependent on the company and the job," she says. However, there are some areas in which AI interviewers can't quite keep up with their human counterparts, recruiters say.

For one, many AI interview tools "really stink" at asking follow-up questions, says Kibben, so if a candidate doesn't provide enough information in their initial answer, the AI interviewer won't prompt them to elaborate like a human might. AI interviewers can also struggle to comprehend normal conversational speech patterns, according to Nicole Kaiser, a technical and executive talent scout based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

What happens next

" Unfortunately, "AI interviewers are not able to do that," she says. "It's missing the benefit of the doubt, which I think is a very important thing for an interviewer to have. She also notes that some AI interviewers struggle to understand different accents. "How to succeed in an AI interviewFor candidates to successfully navigate an AI interview, "they're going to use a lot of the same best practices from traditional interviews," Kibben says:"You just need to communicate about your experience in a slightly different way in an AI environment than you do with a person, because there's not a person to fill in all of the gaps that you don't mention explicitly.

" If an AI interviewer asks whether you have experience using a certain software, you could open with something like, "Yes, I have used that software," before going into more detail. Skip to main contentSkip to navigation The easiest way not to build super-intelligence is for Anthropic to agree not to build it, said David Sacks, co-chair of Trump’s council of advisers on science and technology. Yes, he was talking about artificial superintelligence – an as-yet-nonexistent version of the technology that outcompetes humans in most domains – but his comments, and the chorus of experts that echoed him, jangled plenty of nerves.

The report has been compiled by The Daily Waves using information reported across cnbc.com, theguardian.com. Details are presented according to the information available at the time of publication and may change as authorities, organisers or other relevant parties provide updates.