Automating the Humanity Out of Hiring

Everyone’s hyped for how AI can streamline hiring. Fewer CVs to review, automated interviews that free up your calendar, automated scoring to make your decisions more consistent, meanwhile job seekers absolutely hate it. Economic contractions and all the obvious global issues have already created an incredibly difficult market for job seekers to navigate and it’s being compounded by what seems to be fewer and fewer actual humans involved in the process of deciding whether or not they should hire you.

Ask anyone who's applied for a job recently and you’ll hear the same thing: the process feels cold, robotic, and dehumanising. They don’t know who they’re talking to (if anyone), they don’t trust the system, and they definitely don’t feel seen. Companies are chasing efficiency at the cost of building a real connection. That trade-off might look good on a spreadsheet but it’s a disaster for candidate experience. At this point, we’re sprinting towards hiring becoming a fully automated, entirely transactional process, whilst cosplaying as people who still care about the human who just wants a job they don’t hate so they can pay their rent.

AI tools like Metaview need to exist. Automated note-taking during interviews might just be my favourite hiring innovation. I was an early adopter of Metaview and a huge proponent of their product. Today however, technology has inevitably evolved and our useful little note-taking tools are all being rebranded as “AI Interview Co-Pilots”. In a few short years we’ve gone from “help me remember what was said” to “tell me what I’m supposed to think.”

Let’s be clear here; Metaview and all the other interview co-pilot tools aren’t the problem. The blind outsourcing of responsibility at enormous scale is the real issue at hand.

Companies like Synthesia are creating AI avatars so lifelike, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were speaking to a real person. I might have missed the global memo but when did we all agree that being tricked into thinking we’re talking to a real person was positive progress? If you’ve decided to automate part of your hiring process, fine, but don’t wrap it in digital skin and call it “personalised.” It’s not personalised. It’s weird, it’s creepy, and it’s literally dehumanising.

For job seekers, this stuff isn’t clever. You’re actively alienating the people you will refer to as ‘family’ in your next ‘look at how great our company culture is’ LinkedIn post. You’re hiding behind a synthetic, AI generated smile while pretending to care.

If you’re using AI in your hiring process, own it. Be clear, be transparent, and give people the choice to opt out. The moment you forget that you’re making life-changing decisions on behalf of very real humans and purely focus on how good your metrics look, is the moment that you finally admit that humans are nothing more than resources.