Trust me, the last thing I want is for this publication to become an AI news coverage source. But unfortunately, this tech is impacting every space I can think of right now.
And today, I want to talk about the recent experiences I have had related to -
The Interview Process
Let’s dig in.
Part 1 - AI Spam is Now Hiring Spam
So recently, news broke out of a student at Columbia University who made a Product to bypass dev interviews, especially ones focused on relying on LeetCode.
I won’t go into more details of the news aspect, which you can easily google, or watch this guy (he’s fun): Video Link
And I gotta say, it made me a little happy. Stuff like LeetCode has ruined the hiring process for many. But there is a larger issue to talk about here.
Funnily enough, around this time, I have been in and out of discussions with peers of mine on the apparent rise in use of AI in the interview process.
Having been hiring devs for my own business recently, there is a sharp uptick in obvious AI spam. As if Easy Apply spam wasn’t enough already, now people interviewing need to figure out what is real and what is not.
In recent dev interviews that I took, 9/10 candidates made use of AI based IDEs like Cursor to pass the test assignment. And it was clear more time was required to be spent on validating everyone’s work than ever before.
And that is my point. This all mess, is leading to
Fatigue
Fatigue in shortlisting candidates
Fatigue in doing interviews properly
Fatigue in making sure fairness is applied to the process
list goes on
HR is something that the big businesses can afford.
And expensive fancy ATS tools can perhaps help cut the noise.
But the reality for small to medium businesses right now is that hiring is getting plain impossible. Especially when we consider remote hiring.
On one side, you have folks claiming that getting a job is so hard.
And on the other side you get spammed by applications where you know they didn’t bother reading beyond the title of the job.
Here’s one post I did recently where I made sure to highlight that attaching a video is compulsory to get shortlisted:
Most folks didn’t bother, and bypassed the requirement by putting spam text in the field. One guy just reuploaded his Resume link.
So the question then becomes this - what am I supposed to do as someone who needs to hire folks?
I don’t know yet.
But it is interesting to see.
No wonder 90+% candidates don’t get a genuine response on their applications. When 90+% applications are just needless spam. I feel sorry for the one’s that actually put in the work.
Part 2 - Time for the Old Ways
I had a friend over recently who was telling me how big businesses are investing more than ever in ‘old’ marketing again. Social media has been hacked, Ads don’t work anymore, and generally speaking, the new generation is just over the whole ‘digital’ marketing.
The solution?
Turn back time. Offer experiences, host events, create branding through promotion of activities that someone gives a damn about. Hold hackathons, sponsor collaborations, so on so forth.
Old is new again, and new is in need for a refresh.
I think this is just the ebb and flow of things, they come, they go,
There used to be a time where I spent all my time in private chat groups
Then there was a time where time was spent on forums
and then Social Media became a thing, and ‘private’ was a thing of the past
Until now, where I am again, in ‘private’ Discord servers.
As someone who grew up seeing the transition from old to new to back to old again. It just makes sense that when it comes to Careers and Hiring - I won’t be surprised to see that we evolve backwards to in office interviews.
Do I want that?
Absolutely no
But is that something I might consider?
Probably
As someone who has built his career up because of working ‘remotely’ - I don’t want to betray what I stand on.
But if this keeps getting out of hand, what is the solution? Who knows.
Maybe there will be an AI tool to detect someone using an AI tool to make the interview needlessly hard and pointless to the scope of the role.
Nobody wins, its an all out war.
Part 3 - A Bit About My Interviews
I moved to the freelance world very early in my Career.
For the short time I held corporate jobs, here’s how my interviews went:
I had a 100% success rate with in person interviews
I had a 20% success rate with remote interviews
What gives?
The best I can think of that being in person, you control way more than just what you are saying. You have your body language, how you look, how you gesture, how you command. Charisma plays a much larger role into you making the cut. You can go on tangents, and you can genuinely connect with the person across the desk.
In ways - you get treated as another human who really wants this opportunity.
Where as in remote interviews, you are in front of a camera talking soulless to soulless, answering questions from a list the other person has - and that’s it. If you say the right words, you get picked, otherwise you don’t. And man I sucked at saying the right words I suppose.
In ways - you are just another thumbnail across the wall of thumbnails the interviewer had to go through today - 0 human connection.
For years, I was in doubt, how can I be so bad at interviews.
Mind you, I was now at a point where for my role, all the jobs were remote, so I did not have a choice to do in office interviews even if I wanted.
I had to make remote work, and I couldn’t.
I failed interview, over interview, over interview.
Till the point I started to doubt my own skill.
And then one day, it clicked.
When I went freelance (and to this day) - unless its a budget issue - I have again had a 90% success rate with interviews. Fully remote.
What gives?
And that’s where my hypothesis comes in.
It might be true that I am just bad at interviews for a job, and perhaps freelancing is what I am built for.
But it is definitely true that all those remote interviews I failed, I was facing someone ‘fatigued’ with countless rounds of soulless interviews.
Where they just wanted someone to follow the script, and answer all the questions so they can get on with their job.
They didn’t want someone who goes out of scope or tries to blend in other skills.
Where as when freelancing, the client definitely wants someone who goes the extra mile, someone who can communicate well, and generally speaking, won’t be fatigued as much by constant applications.
Someone who connects with their needs, not just another yes man.
So remote works then? Perhaps.
But this is the crux of the discussion. I think you can make remote work, but most folks choose not to. I think you can be sincere when applying to jobs, but most folks choose note to. I think you can improve your interview process, but most folks aren’t paid enough to care about it.
At the end of the day, with AI now in the mix - these problems get exaggerated.
Ultimately, hiring is not just about filling roles; it’s about building relationships.
Whether through AI-powered tools or face-to-face conversations, the goal should always be to connect with real people who bring value to the table.
And that is something which is becoming lost among all this chaos.
What do you think?