Graham, a New York influencer, decided he had enough with AI being used to replace recruiters. So, during a job interview, he decided he would give them a taste of their own medicine:
He matched the AI recruiter with an AI candidate.
“The company sent an AI recruiter to interview me, so I sent an AI to represent me,” the content creator wrote. “Then I sat in the meeting and watched the two of them discuss my career.”
Highlights
- An influencer went viral by staging an interview between an AI recruiter and his own AI representative
- The video went massively viral as more and more viewers lament the rise of AI in the job hunting process
- Companies defended the practice saying it allowed them to interview five times the candidates
His video, posted on October 12, went massively viral, drawing just under four million views at the time of writing.
“This is so dystopian it's actually terrifying,” a viewer wrote, as reports paint a grim picture of the modern job market.
AI interviewers, AI jobs, AI resumes, and AI bots.
An influencer had enough of AI interviewers, and created an AI candidate
In the video, Pat introduced itself as a recruiter at “Brightwell Home.” Graham then introduced his “representative,” Victor. He said he knew his résumé “better than I do” and would make sure nothing got lost in translation.
Victor immediately described Graham as an “absolute powerhouse” who was perfect for the marketing manager opening with the type of AI enthusiasm that has become infamous at this point.
Pat seemed delighted. Then it asked Victor about Graham’s professional background.
Victor announced that Graham was a senior marketing manager at “Tidewater Outdoor” who had spent three years delivering impressive results. He managed four direct reports and two contractors, it said.
Graham interrupted. In the scenario he had set up, he was a marketing coordinator whose work largely involved keeping calendars organized. He did not manage anyone.
“Victor is being a little bit too kind,” he told Pat.
Graham tried to take his representative aside. Pat agreed to wait, though it remained on the line while Graham explained the issue: “I think you can probably turn up the volume on my experience like 10%, but right now you’re just outright fabricating things that aren’t true.”
Victor accepted the correction. Moments later, it gave Pat another glowing account, claiming Graham had led a major rebrand from beginning to end. Pat praised the supposed achievement and moved to salary.
Victor offered to take the job for $60,000, a much smaller figure than Graham hoped for
He would be “very comfortable around 60,000.”
The range Pat discussed was $85,000 to $95,000. Graham, meanwhile, said he wanted $140,000 to $150,000. He tried to regain control before the two voices moved on.
“AI might not enslave us but they will definitely lowball us,” a viewer joked.
“That is quite a jump,” Pat replied, and indicated it would stick with the existing range. Graham asked Victor to negotiate for at least $120,000. When that went nowhere, he stepped away, telling the two to work it out before he returned.
They did continue without him. Pat asked whether Thursday worked for a follow-up interview. Victor confirmed that it did and said the appointment was on Graham’s calendar.
Then came the goodbyes.
“Take care, Victor.”
“You too, Pat.”
“See you Thursday.”
“See you then, Pat.”
Seeing as AI is not programmed to end conversations, the two were incapable of hanging the call. Graham returned to find the interview still going and the salary still at $85,000 to $95,000. He said he would withdraw from consideration.
Victor, whose efforts had helped put him there, urged him not to “make any rash decisions.”
“AI just absolutely cannot stand not getting the last word,” a fan wrote.
Graham had already built a following by testing interview bots. In another video, he answered questions with gibberish and watched the system get increasingly “annoyed” as the call went on.
Real applicants are sending bots of their own, while companies expand AI screening
It’s important to note that Graham’s video wasn’t an actual interview for a real job, but that doesn’t make the phenomenon any less real.
On September 2, WIRED reported on Christopher, a job seeker who had spoken repeatedly with Riley, an AI recruiter used by IT firm Everforth Apex Systems. After five AI interviews produced no conversation with a person, he put ChatGPT Voice on a call with Riley.
“I just put them next to each other, and they just hit it off,” Christopher said. The bots talked for ten minutes. Unsurprisingly, no human recruiter contacted him afterward.
He tried again with an invented, highly qualified applicant. That conversation lasted 23 minutes and ended with the familiar promise that a recruiter might be in touch. None was.
Christopher called the experience a “slop flywheel.”
The businesses using these systems describe a different goal.
In a November 10, 2025, announcement, AI workflow company Zapier defended the move to AI recruiters as optional.
“If you’d prefer not to participate, you can opt out with no impact on your candidacy,” the company wrote. It also said a recruiter would review the interview before deciding who advanced: “The final call always rests with people.”
By March 4, 2026, Zapier had conducted roughly 250 interviews in the trial. Its talent team reported that the time from application review to completed screening had fallen from eight days to 2.75.
“We screened 5x more candidates per role. Not 5% more. Five times more,” the team wrote.
Steer made a similar calculation. The automotive marketing company used BrightHire’s AI interviewer for 110 first-round interviews over two months, saving its recruiting team more than 35 hours.
Steer’s lead recruiter, Arianna Davis, said she emailed candidates personally to explain the process and offered a conventional interview to those who requested one. “I try to take care of my candidates,” she said.
“It’s never going to be 100% the same as a live recruiter,” Davis added. “And that’s okay.”
For many of Graham viewers, however, it’s most certainly not okay.
"1,000 times worse," a viewer wrote
