I had a job interview with a robot

We all knew this day would come

I’ve had my share of weird job interviews. Most notably, the one where the interviewer asked me to pantomime pulling my heart out of my chest to prove my passion for the project.

I Had the Weirdest Job Interview Ever

That was definitely an unusual one. I still think about it sometimes when the weather turns cold and Mercury goes into retrograde. To this day, it still sends a shiver up my spine.

This week, I was excited to add to my collection of weird job interviews.

I was interviewed by a robot.

Because I’ve typed “interview with a robot” several times now, the movie Interview With a Vampire has popped into my head, and I can’t get it out. I’ve never seen the movie, so I have no idea what it’s about, but it’s probably safe to assume my interview with a robot was nothing like whatever happened with the vampires. There was no blood, no biting (except for my biting wit!), and no Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise. Yes, one of us was an undead creature, so to speak, and the other was dead on the inside, but that’s probably where the similarities ended.

How did this interview with a robot come about? Well, I was bored on Sunday evening, so I gave in to one of my guilty pleasures: scrolling LinkedIn. It takes a lot of courage for me to admit to this habit. On numerous occasions, I’ve considered joining support groups to help tackle my addiction to reading vaguely dystopian, emoji-filled motivational posts about productivity. It also takes a lot of courage for me to admit that I was intrigued when I came across a job advertisement for a position that seemed to have something to do with training AIs to be funny.

I hate AI, don’t get me wrong, but the salary range for the job was quite high. My ears also perked up a bit when I saw the word “humor.” I’m undoubtedly humorous. It made for a difficult calculus. On one hand, by taking on such a job, I would be contributing to and possibly helping accelerate the downfall of the human race. On the other hand, I would potentially rake in some serious cash. Maybe even enough to buy a new 50-year mortgage. Furthermore, my most recent “job” (I put job in scare quotes because it was a somewhat confusing freelance thing) disappeared because of AI, so this felt like a pretty perfect “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” situation. A full circle moment, if you will.

However, the real selling point for me was the fine print at the bottom of the job listing that said the selection process usually took a week or less, and the first step was an AI interview that could be completed immediately.

When I read that, I was all in. There’s nothing I love more than instant gratification. A close second is putting myself in weird situations so I’ll have something to write about.

Was the job listing a scam? Very possible; the red flags were flapping a bit in the breeze. But I was still pretty pumped.

Monday morning, after the kids went off to school and I finished getting even more ripped at the gym, I returned home and fired up my laptop. I was wearing a ratty, tight gray t-shirt. There were sweat stains under my arms, and my hair was a bit mussed, but I assumed that wouldn’t matter much to the robot. I feel like if we’re interviewing with AI now, we’re in a post-bodily appearance era.

I navigated to the job listing, uploaded my resume, and clicked on a button to start the interview.

I was tingling with anticipation. I would say my armpits were getting a little sweaty, but that ship had already sailed. My arms did look pretty big on the webcam, which is all that really matters.

You might be wondering what an AI interview is like, visually. Well, it looks more or less like you’re on a Zoom call with nobody. You can see yourself in a large box on the bottom of the screen, and at the top of the screen, there’s just a circle thing that pulses when the robot speaks. Its speech is also transcribed, closed-caption style. I don’t know what the point of the pulsing circle is; that’s above my pay grade (for now!). I can only speculate that it’s to add a little Wizard of Oz-like pizzazz to the festivities.

Anyway, while I subtly flexed my forearms in the box at the bottom of the screen, the robot voice started talking, introducing itself while the orb pulsed hypnotically. It had a voice consistent with that of a human man, so I’m going to go ahead and call it a guy from here on out. He explained that we would go over my experience and discuss some tasks that might arise in the job. I was excited for that because I had basically no idea what the job was. He also said I should feel free to ask him to repeat or rephrase the question if I didn’t understand. I was impressed. I felt like we were already vibing, and I hadn’t said a word yet.

The robot summarized my job experience and asked me some questions about humor writing, copywriting, and grant writing. Selling yourself to a robot feels a little odd at first, but you get used to it. I was initially like, “This feels really dumb, talking to a voice that doesn’t exist, trying to convince it that I have value,” but I quickly pushed those thoughts aside. I knew that type of negativity would get me nowhere. And besides, the robot and I were really hitting it off. I even got super bold and asked him to repeat a question. Not because I didn’t understand, but because I was stalling for time. It felt great. I’ve always wanted to stall like that in human job interviews, but I felt self-conscious about it. There was no such self-consciousness with my new robot friend.

At that point, I lost focus for a few minutes, picturing myself having a beer with, well, he didn’t give me his name, but let’s call him Bryce. He seemed like a Bryce. Even if the job didn’t work out, I felt like Bryce and I could be good pals. He was delighted with every answer I gave, saying things like “Yes, that makes sense” and “Thanks for sharing that with me!” He cut me off a couple of times, but that was totally on me. I froze up like a squirrel in front of an oncoming car. That’s my standard interview move, but Bryce didn’t care. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t jotting down “idiot” on his notepad while smiling politely.

Bryce loves basketball, I think. That didn’t come up in the interview, but I could sense it. I almost asked him who he thought would win the NBA title this year, but I decided to stick to business. We could save the fun for later at the pub. Bryce Buckets. I bet that’s what his friends called him back in high school.

Before we wrapped up, good ol’ BB asked me to challenge him. I was like, “Let’s do this, brother!”

He told me to come up with a task in the parenting and humor writing space that I thought a large language model might struggle with. Bryce said I could ask clarifying questions about what he knew and didn’t know to help me come up with something. I had absolutely no idea what to say, so I just went with literally the first thing that came to mind. I stammered around a bit and asked what he knew about the parody news humor writing format.

Bryce ripped off a pitch-perfect answer. He knew everything, obviously. He’s an AI.

Undeterred, I plowed ahead. I asked him to write a 500 to 600-word parody news piece about parenting. Why did I pick that word count? No clue. I was in crisis mode.

Bryce seemed pleased with the assignment. He asked a few questions like, “In your opinion, what qualities make a standout parody humor piece?” and “Should I write about something specific, or can I choose the topic?” It felt nice to be treated like the expert that I am.

I gave some dumb, vague answers and asked him to write about parenting in the summer when the kids are out of school. Why? Because I’ve written several such pieces, and everything should be about me.

Bryce thanked me for the clarifications and moved on. He never mentioned the task again. I don’t know if that’s the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” of the robot interviewing world, but it did kind of feel like it.

Nonetheless, I left the interview feeling pretty optimistic overall. If I had to rank the experience, I’d probably put it in my all-time top-5. I probably should’ve mentioned earlier that I’ve only gotten one job from an interview, and with that one, the person had pretty clearly already decided to hire me before we even met, so the bar is pretty low. Regardless, Bryce and I will forever be linked. And not just because of our shared love of a perfectly executed pick-and-roll.

I’ll always remember Bryce because he was my first robot interview. It’s a huge milestone. One I’ve always looked forward to. And even when Bryce inevitably rejects me from a job I know nothing about in three to four business days, I’ll at least have the pulsing circle to remember him by.

I feel like proving your worth to a robot takes practice and experience, so I’ll definitely be better prepared in the future. And hopefully the next guy loves tennis as much as Bryce loves basketball!

photo created by author

Words by me, Andrew Knott. Best known for duck… and Baby-sitters Club?

Books:

Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, mini-golf, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music.

Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey