What an automated interview is
An automated interview (المقابلة المؤتمتة), also called a one way video interview or an asynchronous interview, is an interview in which the candidate answers questions prepared in advance, at a time of their own choosing, with no interviewer present. The answers are recorded so that they can be reviewed afterwards.
An automated interview can mean an asynchronous interview or an automated assessment
Two different arrangements are sold under the name automated interview, and they are confused with each other:
- An asynchronous interview. It moves the time. The candidate answers whenever they choose, and the assessment of the answer stays with people.
- An automated assessment. It moves the judgement. Software gives the answer a score according to its content, the tone of voice or the features of the face.
The difference between the two is what settles the decision. The first changes how the interview is scheduled; the second changes who decides. Both formats are sold under the same name, so the vendor is asked which of them is on offer before anything is bought.
What the asynchronous form of an automated interview solves
At the top of the candidate pipeline (خط إمداد المرشحين), the sequence of stages through which a candidate moves, the burden is one of scheduling. Twenty initial interviews require twenty appointments to be matched between two parties, the interviewer on one side and each candidate on the other, and every appointment that cannot be kept starts the cycle again.
The asynchronous interview breaks that dependence of one diary on another. The candidate records when it suits them, and the answers can then be reviewed together in a single session, instead of being spread across two weeks of separate appointments.
Its design also fixes the questions and their order. The questions are set once, before anyone answers, so every candidate receives the same questions in the same sequence.
Why an automated interview is not enough to make an interview structured
A structured interview rests on four elements:
- Questions written in advance, before any candidate has been seen.
- One order of questions, the same for everyone.
- A rating scale that describes a weak, an adequate and a strong answer to each question.
- Independent scoring by each rater before the raters confer.
Automation supplies the first two by the way it is built, but it does not supply the other two. A rating scale has to be written for each question, and independent scoring is a matter of how reviewers work once the recordings have arrived. Neither follows from the recording itself.
So recording the same questions for a hundred candidates and then assessing the answers on a general impression produces uniform recordings and scores that cannot be compared. The recordings are standardised; the judgement applied to them is not.
What an automated interview costs in the other direction
An interview is an exchange: the candidate is asked questions, and asks questions in turn. The asynchronous format keeps the first direction and removes the second, so the candidate answers in front of a camera about a role they have had no opportunity to ask about.
The effect of that falls on the candidate experience, the impression an applicant forms of an organisation across the hiring journey. How much the effect weighs depends on the stage at which the format is used. At the first stage the number of candidates is large and the information being sought is general. The later the stage, the less there is to justify removing the direction in which the candidate asks.
Part of the loss can be made up in two ways. The first is a page of answers to the questions about the role that candidates can be expected to ask. The second is telling the candidate when they will receive a response, before the recording begins.
The limits of automated assessment in an automated interview
In an applicant tracking system (نظام تتبّع المتقدمين), the system that brings applications together and tracks each candidate through the stages, the practice advised for the automated screening of CVs applies to the automated assessment of answers as well: the output is used to rank candidates, not to reject them outright. The same practice is examined across recruitment tools under AI recruitment.
Three considerations apply to the automated interview specifically:
- What is measured may not be what is wanted. Fluency in speaking to a camera is an ability in its own right, and it is a requirement of particular roles, not of every role. If it enters the score without appearing in the job description, it becomes an undeclared selection criterion.
- An undeclared criterion cannot be defended. If the organisation is asked why a candidate was excluded, the answer leads back either to a written requirement or to nothing at all.
- Automation does not remove the need to examine the criterion. Implicit bias (التحيز الضمني) is a leaning of which the person holding it is unaware, and it affects that person’s judgement. Automation moves the point of examination from the interviewer to the criterion, but it does not remove the examination.
What makes an automated interview fit for use
- Telling the candidate in advance the format of the interview, how long it lasts and how many attempts are available.
- Questions derived from the requirements of the role, written before applications open.
- A described rating scale, completed for each answer separately, not an impression of the recording as a whole.
- Human review of every exclusion before the response is sent to the candidate.
- An alternative route where recording is not possible, because a weak connection or the lack of a device is not a selection criterion.
Where an automated interview does not fit
The asynchronous format works when the questions are relatively closed and the answer can be described. A role that is tested through performance, or a conversation that branches according to what the candidate says, is not captured by a recorded answer with no follow up.
This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.
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