This essay is based on a conversation with Emily Fenech, a 41-year-old marketing VP based in Nashville. Her identity and employment have been verified by Business Insider. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I'm a huge AI fan.
I work for Allvoices, a company in the HR space that uses AI to assist with HR manuals and employee-related tasks.
Part of my role is to check AI applications and stay on track to see how it is being used in different use cases. I'll write about it. I'll make resources about it. I always want to see what's there.
I've been recently 10 cool applications about HR's coolest AI applications, such as instant guides and reading notes.
Many people commented on the post, suggested a variety of tools, and AI interview tools continued to appear in the comments. So I decided to run a mock interview with Tool.
That's when I had a rather negative experience.
It was a robot and lacked emotional intelligence
When I joined, the voice was a robot. I even saw the logo on my avatar, and I think that would make it creepy too. But I was staring at this blank with the voice of a robot asking me a high stakes question, for my future living.
At first, I thought it would be a good screener. It generated a hypothetical situation of interviews for the role of an office manager and asked me to explain my experiences in office management.
I said I've been as an office manager for 25 years and it responded with an exaggerated reply that made me feel gas-lit. “Wow, that's very impressive. 25 years of experience,” he said something along the line. Then I asked me for details about my responsibility, and that's where it kind of collapsed.
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I'm not an office manager. I'm a marketer. So I said, “Plan a birthday party and order toilet paper.” I responded with something like, “Wow, the ability to plan a party is impressive quality.”
I used sarcasm to joke because I wasn't qualified for the role, but this robot continued to teach me how impressive I was. It felt like I had found something positive about anything.
I thought this technology was quick and no one actually used it, but after seeing comments from people on LinkedIn, I was surprised that they were saying they had experienced this or that their company was using the tool.
I think the unfair thing about that is that it gives you robot energy. Humans match the energy they gain from conversation. When that energy was a robot, I felt I used a short sentence and didn't want to talk to it because it wasn't a person.
AI needs to leave the interview process
I work in the employee-related field and use AI for all sorts of HR.
For example, I think transcription conversations are one of the best use cases. We also know companies that use AI to track their goals in performance management by entering emails and holding one-on-one meetings with employees. Some employee support AI tools can help employees find PTO policies or W2 forms without acting as intermediaries for HR employees.
AI is really good for structuring unstructured data, remembering things, taking notes. But conversations that require emotional intelligence should not use AI. There is no irony, no human clue. I can't read the room.
If you can answer your questions correctly or make suggestions without making decisions, there's no harm.
It is clear that you will see potential harm when deciding from a pool of unprogressed candidates.
