We hear it constantly these days: AI is coming for all our jobs, and it seems that includes recruiters and hiring managers if a recent TikTok trend is to be believed. Workers have been posting videos of utterly bizarre, downright creepy encounters with highly dysfunctional AI job interviewers, but one man’s experience went to a whole other level of incompetence.
AI in recruiting is nothing new. We’re a good decade into the practice at this point, and it has as yet basically caused nothing but problems. Not only has it made it nigh on impossible to even get an interview, since AI bots cannot parse nuances in resumes, but it has also, pretty notoriously, been found to exacerbate problems like discrimination, for example.
But a new trend takes this not-ready-for-primetime AI hiring nonsense to a new level. All over TikTok in recent weeks, workers have been sharing videos in which they say they showed up for an online job interview that was supposed to be with a hiring manager, only to find an AI bot awkwardly interviewing them instead — and then almost immediately glitching out in a way that feels low-key dystopian.
Admittedly, some of these viral videos have been revealed to be elaborate jokes from satirists, and none of them have been verified. But the technology is actually nothing new. A 2023 survey from Resume Builder found that 40% of employers surveyed were planning to make the switch to AI job interviews in 2024, with 15% planning to move to an interview process that involved no human interaction at all.
A 2024 article in the Guardian likewise featured several job applicants who’d had experiences with job interviewers that “sounded like Siri,” and the viral videos on TikTok have been full of commenters saying they themselves have experienced an AI interview recently that was every bit as off-putting as the videos portray.
That’s weird and creepy and dystopian enough, but what TikTok creator Leo Humps said happened to him goes far beyond mere creep factor, and it’s being called out as a prime example of how utterly unprofessional and inhumane many companies’ hiring processes have become.
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Just in the interest of due diligence, like all the others, Humps’ video hasn’t been verified either, and it’s possible it, too, is a gag. Nonetheless, even people in the HR field were left furious by what he said happened to him, which suggests that if it is a fake, it has resonated for one main reason: It’s completely plausible.
In his video, Humps said he’d been waiting months for a job interview and had finally landed one, which he said he was told via email would be with the hiring manager. Instead, he was greeted by a disembodied female AI bot, which immediately glitched on the very first question.
“Tell me about a time when” the AI bot began in a cadence nothing at all like what a human would typically use, before getting stuck on the word “when,” saying it over and over and over again in a loop. It then tried to correct itself, saying, “let’s circle back: Tell me about a time when” before glitching yet again.
It went on for so long that Humps wrote in onscreen text that he was waiting for the big reveal that he was being pranked. Instead, the AI bot abruptly ended the interview, thanking him for “answering my questions” and telling him how much it learned about him. “I didn’t get to answer a question,” Humps can be heard saying with bewilderment.
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That’s all bad enough. But then Humps received an email letting him know he’d been rejected from the job, all on the basis of an interview that never even happened. But it got even worse. The email was directed to “Henry.”
As Humps read more of the email, he found that it was not just a simple naming mistake. The email referenced his interview having occurred “yesterday” when, in fact, it had just occurred an hour prior.
Humps wrote in his caption that he is “still in shock” over what happened, and so were many of those who viewed his videos. “This is like a ‘Black Mirror’ episode,” one person wrote, referencing the popular dystopian Netflix series about technology essentially dehumanizing us all and ruining our lives.
But most were outraged at the audacity and disrespect. “I work in HR. Human Resources = PEOPLE…This is absolutely unacceptable,” one person wrote. “The laziness and disregard that companies have for people is disgusting. I’m sorry.”
“Dodged a bullet? Bro, you dodged a MISSILE,” another wrote. Which is certainly true. But what’s also true is what Humps revealed in his first video. It took him MONTHS to land an interview, a common occurrence in today’s job market. To then be met with this nonsense does indeed show a fundamental disrespect for workers on the part of the company (which many viewers urged Humps to expose).
But most workers in today’s market don’t have a choice. If they were hired by one of these disreputable companies, many would be forced to accept the job anyway through sheer desperation. And that just might be the most dystopian part of all.
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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
