An Employer’s 5-Step Guide to AI Interviewing and Hiring Tools
AI-enabled interviewing tools have emerged as common solutions for the administrative burdens associated with hiring. These tools improve efficiency, streamline operations, allow you to consider more candidates without expanding your hiring team, keep evaluations consistent across applicants, and make high-volume hiring easier. However, their adoption also raises important legal considerations, including potential bias, compliance risks, and data privacy and cybersecurity obligations – all while we face a growing regulatory and litigation landscape targeting the use of these tools. This insight reviews the most common tools being deployed by employers, their associated risks, and provides a five-step suggested plan for minimizing liability.
AI Interview Tools and Systems
Rather than solely focusing on tools that assist with logistics or document review (like simple schedulers or resume screeners), the newest generation of AI hiring tools can analyze and organize interview responses in ways that can directly shape hiring decisions.
- Transcription and summarization tools: These tools convert spoken interview responses into written text using speech recognition technology, making interviews easier to review, search, and compare across candidates. Many platforms also generate summaries, highlights, or structured interview notes to support recruiter review.
- Interview analysis and evaluation tools: These systems analyze recorded interview responses to assess factors such as speech patterns, tone, pacing, word choice, facial expressions, and other nonverbal cues. Some tools incorporate emotion or sentiment analysis or natural language understanding to evaluate both how candidates communicate and the substance of their responses, producing scores, rankings, or qualitative insights to support early-stage screening.
- Adaptive or dynamic interview systems: These tools adjust interview questions in real time or across interview stages based on a candidate’s prior responses. The goal is to probe specific competencies, behaviors, or skills more deeply by tailoring follow-up questions rather than relying on a fixed interview script.
- Behavioral, personality, and multimodal assessment tools: Certain AI interview platforms attempt to infer behavioral tendencies or personality traits by combining data from audio, video, and text responses. These multimodal systems may draw on behavioral frameworks to assess characteristics such as communication style, adaptability, or collaboration.
- Skills and assessment platforms: These tools use simulations, technical challenges, situational judgment tests, or role-specific exercises to evaluate how candidates perform job-related tasks, often producing standardized results that allow for comparison across applicants.
- Video interview platforms: These platforms support live or asynchronous video interviews and often serve as the foundation for other AI-driven features. In addition to hosting interviews, they may integrate automated screening, adaptive questioning, communication analysis, and structured candidate summaries to support early interview stages and recruiter review.
Legal, Ethical, and Organizational Risks Associated with AI Interview Tools
As with other AI systems, AI interviewers are shaped by the data used to design and develop them, which can give rise to legal, ethical, and organizational risks similar to those associated with other AI tools. These issues are further heightened by the collection and analysis of sensitive data, such as biometric identifiers, behavioral patterns, and other personal signals generated during AI interviews.
- Race and Disability Bias: Candidates with disabilities may claim to be disadvantaged when their communication or behavior differs from the patterns these systems are trained to recognize as indicators of qualification. For example, a pending discrimination complaint filed by the ACLU highlights these concerns, alleging that an employer’s use of AI interview tools adversely affected a deaf, Indigenous employee.
- State Data Privacy: AI interviewers can collect and process a significant amount of sensitive data, including video and audio recordings, behavioral signals, and, in some cases, biometric identifiers. As the state data privacy law landscape continues to expand, organizations must determine how interview data is handled throughout its lifecycle.
- Organizational Security and Deepfakes: AI interview tools face challenges when encountering deepfakes, which involve manipulated content. This can lead to AI systems analyzing fabricated signals rather than authentic candidate behavior.
- Vendor Liability: Organizations may face legal and compliance exposure based on the design and operation of third-party AI interview tools. Employers remain responsible for how AI interviewer tools function and the outcomes they produce, even when managed by a vendor.
- Reputational and Trust Risks: The use of AI interview tools is not limited to employers; organizations must also address applicants’ use of AI during the interview process, which can affect perceptions of fairness.
5 Steps You Can Take to Mitigate Risks
If your organization uses or is considering AI interview tools, the following five steps can help proactively manage risk:
- Develop Comprehensive AI Policies: Establish a comprehensive program to address organizational AI governance, ethical use of AI, and tool-specific acceptable use policies.
- Ensure Ongoing Vendor Oversight: Treat AI interview vendors as an extension of the hiring process. Manage risk with clear contractual guardrails and ongoing monitoring.
- Adopt Measures to Identify and Prevent Deepfakes: Implement identity verification measures for candidates and establish review protocols to flag irregular interview behavior.
- Audit AI Interview Tools and Systems: Regularly audit tools to assess whether they may disadvantage candidates, ensuring alternative interview formats are available.
- Establish Clear and Balanced Policies on Applicant AI Use: Address applicant use of AI during interviews through transparent policies, clearly communicating acceptable and prohibited uses.
