‘I do not find it humane’: Job seeker rejects AI interview for below-median-pay role
A short email has struck a chord on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell, posted by a job seeker who declined an invitation to be interviewed by an AI system.
“I’m going to be direct with you,” the email read. “I do not find it humane to have to interview an AI for a job that pays less than the national median income when I have a degree and several years of experience. Please remove me from your application list. Thanks.”
The original poster said simply that it “felt good to send this.”
What Reddit said
Many commenters shared their own discomfort with AI-led interviews. “The worst are the video AI interviews,” one wrote. “It’s definitely uncomfortable not speaking to a real person and not being able to read body language and expressions. It’s cold and impersonal.”
Another described abandoning one after about three minutes. The system would not answer questions about the company and repeated questions already answered in the application. The company later offered a human interview anyway, but they did not respond.
Several echoed the email’s logic. “If you can’t bother to interview me, I can’t be bothered to work there,” one commenter wrote. Another hoped more people would follow suit: “Maybe then they’ll stop messing around with everyone.”
One offered a more rational view of why the practice persists: “The sad part is they still have 100+ qualified people taking the AI interview and begging for the job. This is happening because they can get away with it.”
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As the last commenter noted, a single refusal will not change much while plenty of other applicants are willing to sit the AI interview. But the post’s popularity, with over 8,000 upvotes and nearly 150 comments, suggests a growing number of job seekers are deciding where to draw that line.
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