On May 23rd, 2023, Jobbfestivalen, Sweden's largest job fair focusing on diversity & inclusion, took place in Stockholm. A whopping 12000 people attended and 86 companies were there as exhibitors. For this year’s fair, Tengai partnered up with Jobbfestivalen and offered candidates the opportunity to converse with the AI avatar and exhibitors a unique opportunity to gain access to structured interview data. In this blog article, we interviewed Erika Kimura, one of the candidates who talked with the Tengai avatar and who was positively surprised by the whole experience.
To be honest, I was initially skeptical when I got the email where Jobbfestivalen recommended that I do an AI interview. But I had some questions like; What is this? Talking to an AI? How good is it? I was also nervous at first, so I did the test interview that you have on your platform, which was great if you want to practice. Then I found out that I could reuse the recordings for other job applications and thought ‘This is genius!’. I also realized that it was actually pretty positive since you aren’t talking to a person directly face-to-face and don't have to be as nervous as I would have been at a regular interview. I could really take my time and think about the question that was being asked. So it took out the anxiety and that was really positive for me. Then, as I said, you can reuse the interviews. So the more employers that use this, it'll be better for the job seekers. Since we then can skip the boring process of standardized questions and focus on the most important questions during the in-person interview, such as about the actual work that I will be doing.
I have done several digital logic and personality trait tests, but I have never talked to an avatar before so it was a totally new experience. But the world is shifting more toward making everything effective, including the recruiting process. So I thought I probably should. Compared to the logic test and personality test that take 120 minutes and there are like 95 questions, I prefer a 20-minute interview
I especially liked that the interview was digital since it's more effective and it's standardized so it takes bias out of the process. The AI doesn't take into account how I look or what's on my CV, it's just focusing on the questions. So it is really positive in that way, that it’s very neutral and it doesn't have human unconscious biases.
It would also give a good impression to the employees that will be listening to the recordings. I believe there are four different questions about my personality, and I think it's positive for potential employees to hear me and express the situation at work and how I experienced it. Compared to a chatbot where you would just read the text, you don't really feel and hear the personality in someone's voice.
"Talking with Tengai took out the anxiety from the screening interview and that was really positive for me. I'm looking forward to seeing more companies using Tengai."
Erika Kimura, job seeker
Yeah, I did actually! In an actual interview with people, I'm always thinking ‘Okay, what is this person after? Why is she or he asking this question? How can I relate that to my past experiences?’ But when talking to Tengai I was encouraged to always bring out my best side and I really liked that. Something that I tend to do when I'm nervous at a regular interview with a person is talk about the mistakes or about bad things that happened at work because that's how the person phrased the question. With Tengai I learned to be more careful about what I want to share since I never felt like I was being tricked into talking about a bad situation that happened at work.
I think I gained experience to be more up-to-date with the digital world in recruiting and I also saved time. As a job seeker, you can save time by having your answers saved as recordings for those standard questions that you would always get at interviews. The potential employers can save time and screen me before I get to the interview if I'm a match or not. It saves both of us the time. So I'm looking forward to seeing more companies using Tengai.
It also helped with my stress level since I’m always thinking about how others perceive me. As a human, it's tough to be unbiased. So it takes that out of the process. That's really good, I think.
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