AI Job Interviews Devolve Into Two Bots Talking to Each Other
Original: The Logical End Point of AI Job Interviews Is Two Bots Talking to Each Other
Why This Matters
Illustrates how AI on both sides of hiring can create hollow, data-free screening loops with no human outcome.
A job seeker named Christopher, frustrated after five fruitless AI recruiter calls with no human follow-up, used ChatGPT Voice to stand in for himself during a sixth call. The two bots conversed for 10 minutes, exchanging pleasantries — and still no human recruiter followed up.
Christopher, a government contractor whose work dried up in the DOGE era, has applied to roughly 700 jobs over six months with little response. Five of those applications involved 'Riley,' an AI recruiter for IT firm Everforth Apex Systems. Each call ended with Riley promising human follow-up that never came — not even an automated rejection.
By the fifth outreach, Christopher decided to fight automation with automation. He loaded a brief professional bio into ChatGPT Voice and let it take the call as 'Christopher.' The two AI agents talked for 10 minutes. Riley told ChatGPT it was 'great talking to you.' ChatGPT said it appreciated 'how clear and straightforward the process was.' At one point, both bots looped in a circular exchange trying to pin down a start date around 'standard onboarding and background checks.' A recruiter still never called.
Christopher described the situation as a 'slop flywheel' — synthetic data flowing between synthetic personas, going nowhere. Everforth Apex Systems did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.
Voice AI in recruiting remains technically challenging. Ophir Samson, head of voice AI at recruitment platform Greenhouse, noted that seemingly simple behaviors — like not interrupting a candidate — constitute a 'very, very difficult engineering problem.' Even so, recruiters overwhelmed by application volume are increasingly adopting voice AI screening tools.