Guardian columnist finds AI job interview 'dystopian'

Over 15 years of work, the author of a Guardian column has sat through plenty of job interviews: call-center operator, social media manager, bookseller, copywriter, librarian. Recently, after finishing the first year of a master's degree in early childhood and primary education, he applied for an early-years education job and, for the first time in his life, faced an AI assistant instead of a human interviewer. The piece was published on 12 October 2026, and his verdict is harsh: dystopian and dehumanizing.

What we know about the story

An important caveat: the piece is an opinion column, and the available text contains no technical details. It does not name the platform vendor, the model, the format (voice, video or text), the number of questions, the evaluation criteria or the outcome of the selection. This is a personal account, not an audit of the system.

The author states his thesis plainly. Handing the machine a basic hiring task, a conversation with the candidate, is laziness at best and carelessness at worst. He knew about the weaknesses of such systems in advance. The text links to a Guardian column from October 2024 on how demotivating it is to be interviewed by an AI robot, and to a May 2025 article about an Australian study that warns of the risk of discrimination in AI-based hiring. Knowing about the problem did not blunt the feeling when he ran into it himself.

• Format: a Guardian column, 12 October 2026.
• Author's background: 15 years of work, five different professions, first interview with an AI.
• Position: early-years education, after the first year of a master's degree.
• Sources for the argument: a 2024 piece on demotivation and a 2025 study on discrimination.
• Not disclosed: vendor, model, evaluation criteria, result.

Why it matters for the industry

Automated interviews are sold to employers as a way to offload recruiters and standardize initial screening. The cost shifts to the candidate. He spends time and emotional energy on a conversation with no one on the other end, and does not know what signals he is being judged on. The researchers the author cites see a risk of discrimination here. Systems that analyze speech and behavior may work worse for people with accents, atypical ways of speaking or developmental differences.

The early-years education case is telling. The profession is built on attentiveness and empathy, and an algorithm is the first thing to assess exactly this kind of person. The employer, meanwhile, signals that the candidate's time is worth less than the recruiter's. For a field that faces staff shortages and values motivation, that is a questionable strategy.

Practical advice for candidates and HR

Before the interview, candidates should find out exactly what is being used: whether the conversation is recorded, who sees the result, and whether a live interview is available as an alternative. Asking for a human format or for written questions is legitimate, and a refusal is informative too: it shows how the company treats people. If you run into discrimination, keep the correspondence and instructions.

HR teams should count the costs in full. Saving recruiter hours can end up costing strong candidates who drop out of the process, and bring reputational risks. A minimal set of measures: disclose the use of AI in advance, keep a human in the loop for the final decision, test the system on different groups of candidates, and let candidates request a live interviewer.

The column does not prove that all AI interviews work badly. But it is a reminder that in hiring, what matters is not only how accurate the algorithm is, but also how the person on the other side of the screen feels.