Herman Ko
- Companies are increasingly using AI to screen job applicants.
- This can range from video-based interviews, essay writing, job simulations, and psychometric tests.
- Herman Ko, a banker turned career coach, shares five tips for acing these assessments.
Herman Ko is 27 but already has experience sitting on both sides of the recruiting table.
The former banker worked at JPMorgan for about 3 ½ years before joining Career Hackers, a human resources and education technology startup in March 2024. Ko is now the company's head coach and chief program director, where he helps to design and administer AI hiring assessments for companies.
Ko told Business Insider that it is becoming increasingly common for recruiters to use AI to screen job applicants. This includes video-based interviews, essay writing, job simulations, and psychometric tests to assess leadership potential.
Ko said using AI allows recruiters to save time in the hiring process since they don't have to sift through hundreds or even thousands of applications.
"In just five seconds, they will know if the candidate is compatible or competitive enough," he added.
Here are five tips Ko has for candidates looking to ace their AI hiring assessments.
1. The first 30 seconds matter
Herman Ko
Ko said the first 30 seconds of a video interview matter. That's because it is roughly the amount of time a human recruiter will spend sampling random candidate clips during a hiring cycle.
"What we observe is people only listen for the first few seconds, like 10 to 20 seconds, to make a judgment on how outspoken you are, your confidence level, your delivery, and then they rely on the AI generated transcript so they don't need to watch the entire video," Ko said.
"That means having a very solid introduction can make a lasting impression," Ko added.
2. Think like a top 1% candidate
Ko said candidates need to give answers that can differentiate themselves as top-tier applicants.
"By statistics, only the top 1% will make it into investment banks or top firms. That means you cannot say what 99% of the candidates will use in their responses because you will just be categorized as not competitive enough," Ko said.
Candidates should instead take some time to think through their answers instead of launching into the first few points that come to mind, Ko said.
"You need to think about what the average applicant will say. Usually, the first few things that pop into your head are those points," Ko said. "For us, our AI tools compare the candidate's talking points and rate them accordingly."
3. Always maintain your professional image
Even though AI assessments are conducted in the comfort of one's home, Ko said candidates should strive to project a professional image through their attire and environment.
"Some firms will care about whether you are outspoken or professional enough to represent a firm. In terms of professional attire, of course, you should not wear a polo T-shirt in a video interview. You always overdress, rather than underdress," Ko said.
Candidates should also take their video interviews in a neat and tidy environment, Ko told BI.
"When you do the video interviews, do not do it in a bedroom with clothes hanging around," Ko said.
"When we were recruiting for one of the largest law firms in the world, they got us to generate a candidate profile on what attire he or she wore, and how their background looked," Ko added.
4. Keep it natural
Ko said candidates should not try to read from a script in video interviews. This is because AI algorithms can pick up when candidates are doing so.
"If you read from a script, your eyeballs will move in a zigzag pattern. It's easily noticeable, even for human sampling," Ko said.
Some candidates, Ko said, would try to include certain keywords in their responses to fool the AI into giving them a higher grade. Ko said such tricks would not work because there are usually anti-cheating mechanisms to track such behavior.
"Keep it natural. Try not to go too fast and ensure you have a clear pronunciation. Sometimes, when candidates are nervous, they will just give rapid-fire responses. But the thing is, if they do it too fast or not too clearly, the AI is not going to be able to capture your speech and build an accurate transcript to analyze," Ko said.
"At the same time, the human assessor cannot judge your points based on the transcript. So, make sure to go a little bit slower to make sure the AI can capture what you are talking about clearly," Ko added.
5. Do not use AI in interviews
Just because candidates are being assessed by AI doesn't mean they should use AI tools to prepare for interviews, Ko said. He added that most assessment platforms have built-in detection mechanisms to identify AI-generated responses.
"When you use AI, there is a unique language pattern for those AI-generated responses," Ko said. "From my experience working with corporates, on average, at least 37% of candidates use AI for their responses."
"For example, their arguments and their examples are all the same. Even the sequence and wording are exactly the same when it comes to namedropping examples," Ko added.
And there's deepfake technology, where candidates can get someone more "talented" or "outspoken" to take the interview on their behalf, Ko said.
"But tools these days are now very advanced as well. We can also catch candidates using deepfakes, and we also have facial recognition
tools," he said.
Ultimately, candidates looking to land a job need to understand how critical these AI hiring assessments are, Ko said.
"Some candidates are like, 'I will just prepare for the Superday. I will just prepare for the group interviews.' But if they don't manage to pass this round, there's nothing out there for them. So it is really worth the energy to do some drills on these kinds of tools," Ko said.