After the epidemic, virtual meetings and interviews became new to the Silicon Valley. From startups to Big tech giants, most companies transferred to online hiring procedures to promote efficiency and cut costs. However, AI is now changing the dynamics of work, a new problem that is facing these companies- AI-Assisted cheating during virtual hiring. To deal with this, Google has decided to bring back the in-tradition job interview to make a more accurate assessment of the actual skills of a candidate.

Earlier this year, in February, during the meeting of an internal town hall, Google employees raised the issue of candidates relying directly on the AI ​​Tool to cheat in the interview, in which the discussion of discussion was reviewed. An employee asked, “Can we get back the onsite job interview? There are many email threads about this subject. If the budget is a barrier, can we get candidates in an office or environment that we can control?”

Brian Ong, Vice President of Google’s recruitment, admitted that the challenge was real. While online interviews helped the company to shorten the hiring timeline for about two weeks, he admitted that they had the lack of authenticity to assess face to face. During the town hall, Ong said, “We definitely have more work to do more work on how AI is now more prevalent in the interview process.”

To replace the hiring playbook, employees got top level support from CEO Sundar Pichai, who confirmed that Google would adopt a hybrid approach to recruitment. Speaking at the Lex Fridman Podcast in June, Pichai said, “We all do hybrid work, I think it is worth thinking about some parts of the interview. I think it will help both candidates understand Google’s culture and I think it is good for both sides.”

He further stressed that at least one round in-period interview would now be mandatory for some roles, especially those who require practical assessment such as coding challenges. “We are sure that we will introduce at least one round in-Person interview for people, just to make sure that there are basic things,” Pichai said.

In particular, Google is not the only company that is stressed with AI-caseized fraud during interviews. Reports suggest that more than half of the candidates of some organizations are suspected of using unauthorized AI equipment during virtual interviews. That reality has triggered a wave of policy changes in the corporate world.

For example, Amazon now needs candidates to formally accept that they will not use the AI ​​equipment during the interview. AI Safety company Anthropic has also clearly banned applicants from using such technology in its recruitment process. Counseling giants such as Macines and Deloite with technical players like Cisco have also restored face-to-face interviews for specific roles. Deloite has already re-presented the in-tradition sessions for its UK graduate program.