An Employer’s 5-Step Guide to AI Interviewing and Hiring Tools

AI-enabled interviewing tools have emerged as a common solution for the administrative burdens associated with hiring. These tools improve efficiency, streamline operations, allow you to consider more candidates without expanding your hiring team, keep evaluations consistent across applicants, and make high-volume hiring easier. But their adoption also raises important legal considerations, including potential bias, compliance risks, and data privacy and cybersecurity obligations – all while we face a growing regulatory and litigation landscape targeting the use of these tools. 

5 Steps You Can Take to Mitigate Risks

If your organization uses or is considering AI interview tools, the following five steps can help proactively manage risk.

1. Develop Comprehensive AI Policies. While many organizations rely on a single, high-level AI policy, a more effective governance framework typically includes multiple, complementary policies tailored to different aspects of AI use. At a minimum, you should establish a comprehensive program to address three areas: organizational AI governance, ethical use of AI, and tool-specific acceptable use policies.

2. Ensure Ongoing Vendor Oversight. You should treat AI interview vendors as an extension of the hiring process rather than as standalone technology providers. Managing risk requires clear contractual guardrails, transparency into how tools function, and ongoing monitoring to ensure compliance and fairness.

3. Adopt Measures to Identity and Prevent Deepfakes. Adopting identity verification measures for candidates, particularly in asynchronous interviews, and establishing review protocols to flag irregular or suspicious interview behavior can help mitigate the use of deepfakes. For video interviews in particular, you should implement tools that support human review and train employees to recognize indicators of manipulated or synthetic content.

4. Audit AI Interview Tools and Systems. You should regularly audit AI interview tools to assess whether they rely on signals such as speech patterns, accents, tone, facial expressions, or eye contact, and limit or disable features that may disadvantage candidates with disabilities, neurodivergent traits, or culturally distinct communication styles. You should also ensure that alternative interview formats are available to help prevent qualified candidates from being screened out based on how AI systems interpret communication rather than job-related qualifications.

5. Establish Clear and Balanced Policies on Applicant AI Use. Your approach to applicant use of AI during interviews can present reputational risk if perceived as inconsistent, overly restrictive, or misaligned with the employer’s own use of AI tools. Prohibiting applicant AI use while deploying AI interviewers may be viewed as a double standard, potentially affecting employer brand, candidate trust, and overall recruitment outcomes. Accordingly, you should address applicant use of AI during interviews through transparent, balanced policies rather than blanket prohibitions. This includes clearly communicating what types of AI use are acceptable, such as accessibility tools or interview preparation support, and what uses are not permitted, such as real-time response generation intended to misrepresent a candidate’s abilities.