An AI Might Run Your First Interview. Here's How To Handle It Well.

More than 2,500 AI-led job interviews were run in a single month by just one employment software company. That was Employment Hero's figure for April, reported by 1News, and its chief executive Neil Webster said he would be very surprised if, in five years' time, the vast majority of interviews did not involve AI at some point.

Earlier this month the other side of that story got some airtime. RNZ reported on a job seeker whose AI interviewer cut her off whenever she paused to think, after which the company that had been so keen went quiet. She now suspects the whole thing was a way to collect her data, and has started a petition to Parliament asking for ghost job ads to be banned.

If you are mid-level or senior in IT, digital, accounting, finance, risk or corporate support, there is a fair chance you will be asked to do one of these, particularly in the first round of a busy process. So it is worth knowing how to tell a real process from a dodgy one, what you are entitled to ask, and how to come across well when the first interviewer is software.

What is actually happening

The AI interviews being reported in New Zealand are first-round screens. In the 1News test, an AI voice asked questions tailored to the role, analysed the answers and came up with follow-up questions on the spot, and the whole thing took about five minutes. Webster said their firm rule is to keep a human in the loop, with the AI making a recommendation rather than a decision, and that employers are using it because they are getting hundreds of applications for a single role.

That volume is the real driver. SEEK's August Employment Report had applications per job ad up 0.9 percent in July, the sharpest lift in 18 months, so plenty of hiring teams are reaching for anything that gets them through the pile faster. It is the interview version of the CV screening tools covered in our guide to getting noticed by AI screening tools.

Real job or data grab: how to tell

Neither SEEK nor Trade Me told RNZ they see ghost jobs as a material issue on their sites, pointing to the cost of advertising, their verification checks and the option to report a suspicious listing. LinkedIn said it is investing in free verification for jobs, recruiters and company pages. The concern in the story was mostly about companies posting lots of remote roles with attractive salaries, and Victoria University's Ben Walker said an intense recruitment drive from a company you have never heard of should raise a few question marks.

A few minutes of checking before you hit record goes a long way. Look for a proper website and a real address, see whether the role also appears on the company's own careers page or on SEEK or Trade Me, and check you can find actual people who work there. If the pay looks well above the market for the level, or the role is remote with almost no detail about the team, treat that as a reason to look harder rather than a reason to rush.

What you are entitled to ask

The Privacy Act applies to recruitment, AI or not. The Privacy Commissioner's recruitment guidance says employers can only use information gathered in a recruitment process for that purpose unless you give express consent, and should securely destroy unsuccessful candidates' applications unless you have agreed to them being kept on file. The Commissioner's guidance on AI also notes that reusing personal information to train AI tools may go against the purpose it was collected for.

So it is perfectly reasonable to ask, politely, who will see your recording, how long it will be kept, and whether it will be used for anything other than this role. A genuine employer can usually answer that in an email, and if nobody can, that tells you something too.

How to come across well to a machine

The biggest practical problem in the RNZ story was timing, because the AI assumed she had finished whenever she stopped to think. The way around that is to do your thinking before the interview starts. Pick five or six examples from your last few roles that show the scope of what you have done, such as the team size, budget, system, regulator or deadline, and know roughly how you would tell each one in a minute or two.

When a question comes, lead with the answer and then give the example, rather than building up to the point. The candidate in the RNZ story said the AI would pick up on a key word, such as project management, and ask her to say more, so use the same plain terms the job ad uses for the skills you genuinely have. A quiet room, a phone or camera on a stand and a decent headset will help more than any amount of polish, and one practice run out loud will show you how long your answers really are. Try not to read from a script, though, because it sounds flat to the person reviewing the recording later, and real system names and real outcomes are what make you sound like someone who has done the work. We made a similar point about CVs in Everyone's CV Looks Sharp Now.

It is fine to ask for a person

For senior roles, it is reasonable to ask the recruiter or hiring manager whether there will be a conversation with a person after the AI stage, and roughly when. If a timed, recorded format will not show you at your best for a health or accessibility reason, say so and ask for an alternative. And if a senior process is automated from start to finish with no human contact at all, that says something about how the business treats people, which is worth weighing up before you go much further.

What this means for candidates

AI interviews are becoming a normal part of the first round, and handled well they are just another screen to get through. Check the job is real before you share anything, ask where your recording ends up, and go in with your examples ready so a pause does not cost you. The aim is the same as it always was, which is getting to a real conversation with the person you would actually be working for.

If you are an experienced IT, digital, finance, risk or corporate professional in Auckland or Wellington and would rather talk your next move through with a person, talk to the Find team.

Sources: 1News, "AI is interviewing thousands of Kiwi job seekers" (21 May 2026); RNZ, "Job seeker calls for ban on 'ghost' interviews that harvest data for AI" (4 October 2026); SEEK NZ Employment Report, August 2026; Office of the Privacy Commissioner, Recruitment guidance and AI and the Information Privacy Principles.