{"id":437319,"date":"2026-05-20T21:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/437319\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:38:14","slug":"ai-is-interviewing-thousands-of-kiwi-job-seekers-so-i-gave-it-a-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/437319\/","title":{"rendered":"AI is interviewing thousands of Kiwi job seekers \u2014 so I gave it a try"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 2500 AI-led job interviews were carried out by a single company last month by a New Zealand company \u2014 a sign of how rapidly artificial intelligence is reshaping hiring in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Employment software company Employment Hero, which says its New Zealand customer base has grown 60% in the past two years, told BNZ Business Breakfast businesses were using AI to sort through hundreds of applications, rank candidates and conduct first-round screening interviews as employers deal with an increasingly competitive job market. <\/p>\n

To see how the technology works in practice, I gave it a test run \u2014 interviewing for a fictional reporter role at TVNZ through an AI recruitment assistant. <\/p>\n

Testing the technology<\/p>\n

The interview began much like a standard online screening call, with the AI introducing itself before moving through a series of questions tailored specifically to journalism and reporting. <\/p>\n

Questions included prompts like: ‘Can you walk us through a key career achievement where you uncovered an exclusive story that had a significant impact?’ and ‘Describe a specific instance where you successfully mentored a junior journalist to improve their reporting skills’. <\/p>\n

Unlike a traditional interview, there was no person on the other end of the screen \u2014 just an AI-generated voice asking questions, analysing responses and generating follow-up prompts in real time. <\/p>\n

The whole thing took around five minutes.<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence is increasingly reshaping how New Zealanders get hired \u2014 with one company alone conducting more than 2500 AI-led interviews last month. (Source: BNZ Business Breakfast)<\/p>\n

Recruitment under pressure <\/p>\n

Employment Hero chief executive Neil Webster said the technology was designed to help employers manage overwhelming volumes of job applications. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirstly they\u2019re using the AI to work out who should be on that shortlist,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve had 200 people apply for a role, you need to be able to quickly comb that down and rank those employees, so the AI does that and gives you a shortlist.\u201d <\/p>\n

Webster said New Zealand\u2019s labour market had become increasingly difficult for job seekers<\/a>, with some employers receiving hundreds of applications<\/a> for a single position. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately for all the job hunters out there, there is a lot more people looking for jobs than jobs are going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re actually seeing for each role hundreds and hundreds of applicants applying for each role.\u201d <\/p>\n

The company said the technology was growing rapidly in popularity, with more than 2500 AI interviews conducted in April alone. <\/p>\n

\"Employment<\/p>\n

Employment Hero chief executive Neil Webster. (Source: BNZ Business Breakfast)<\/p>\n

Bias concerns <\/p>\n

As AI becomes more embedded in recruitment, concerns are also being raised around transparency, bias and the role humans still play in hiring decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our firm rules is that there\u2019s always a human in the loop,\u201d Webster said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never want the AI to make a decision; we want the AI to make a recommendation and to save the employer time.\u201d <\/p>\n

He acknowledged there was always a risk of bias in recruitment, whether hiring decisions are made by humans or AI systems. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always got to be alert for that bias. We train our AI against millions of candidates, and we review to see if we can detect bias.\u201d <\/p>\n

Webster believes human involvement will remain critical in the final stages of recruitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think AI is going to be an integral part of work<\/a> everywhere and recruitment absolutely,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be very surprised if five years\u2019 time you didn\u2019t have the vast majority of interviews involving AI at least at some point in the recruitment structure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 2500 AI-led job interviews were carried out by a single company last month by a New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,138,1122,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-437319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-business","tag-employment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}