The rise of AI in hiring has introduced innovative candidate screening methods that help employers process high volumes of applications more quickly — with the ultimate goal of identifying the best-fit candidates before the competition.
But not all screening tools offer the same experience, and not all AI is built with the candidate experience in mind — a critical component if brand reputation is important to you (and it should be).
Today, we’re here to discuss two modern assessment tools that are causing a stir in the HR tech space as teams search for a better way to navigate the stack of resumes without compromising their candidate experience: one-way video interviews and the quickly emerging AI interviewer bot (or avatar).
This is particularly the case for SMB HR teams seeking a solution to their primary challenge: being a lean team with limited resources and budget, yet still needing to be more competitive for top talent.
While both tools aim to solve the problem of gathering deeper candidate insights upfront, they differ sharply on what matters most: authenticity and candidate comfort.
Keep reading for a breakdown of how these two candidate screening tools stack up.
Table of contents
One-Way Video Interview vs. AI Interviewers
Key Takeaways
- The Authenticity Debate: Many people, both candidates and employers, feel that today’s AI interviewer tools introduce a level of inauthenticity by posing as human recruiters.
- Empowering Candidates: One-way video interviews fundamentally give power back to candidates by allowing multiple attempts, creating a lower-pressure environment where top talent can present their best selves in a way a resume or application can’t showcase. This also provides better candidate insights to you, the employer.
- Fragmented or Faulty Candidate Insights: Because AI bots are built to respond as humans, many candidates often note lags and conversational pauses, creating a disjointed candidate experience, not only frustrating the user but also hurting the fidelity of the candidate responses being captured.
The Candidate Experience: Comfort, Control, and Trust
The core difference between these two hiring tools lies in the candidate’s ability to put their best foot forward by putting control in their hands.
For example, the ability to have multiple attempts in a one-way video interview dramatically lowers the stakes, allowing candidates to refine their answers.
In contrast, the high-pressure, single-take nature of most of today’s AI avatars, coupled with lag or miscommunication, is often what frustrates candidates the most, undermining the entire candidate experience.
Here’s a deeper look at how one-way video interviewing software and AI interviewers or chatbots stack up at a high level:
| Tool | One-Way Video Interview | AI Interviewer Bot (Avatar) |
| Response Takes | Allows multiple attempts/takes (candidates can re-record). | It allows only one take, leading to higher pressure and less comfort. |
| Comfort | Provides a controlled environment where the candidate can be their best self and answer the same objective questions. | Often results in a disjointed and clunky experience due to processing pauses, misinterpretations, or being cut off mid-response. |
| Industry Perception | A structured tool for answering pre-set questions; still missing the human interaction. | Highly perceived as inauthentic — a “fake person” — which often frustrates candidates and produces fragmented results. |
The Employer View: Strategic Insight vs. Brand Risk
For employers, the strategic decision hinges on whether the marginal gain in novelty is worth the risk to the employment brand.
Let’s dig into what the industry is saying about the two candidate screening tools:
| Tool | One-Way Video Interview | AI Interviewer Bot (Avatar) |
| Data Collection | Provides consistent insights via pre-set questions. | Aims to provide similar insights, but is often known for disrupting candidates, potentially corrupting the quality of the data captured. |
| Brand Risk | Lower risk. While the market perception remains split in many ways, this tool has made strides in candidate perception over the past decade. | Higher risk. A much newer tool, where the experience remains quite poor, and more often than not, candidates blame the interviewing employer. |
| Strategic Misstep | Offers structure without pretense that you will be interviewed by an actual person — a more honest approach. | Viewed as an attempt to replicate a human recruiter, which introduces awkward friction. |
Data Consistency and Fidelity
While both tools deliver candidate data, the fidelity and consistency of that data are key.
In one-way video interviews, the candidate is responding to static, consistent questions, with the ability to review the question and answer multiple times, ensuring a cleaner response is submitted and a fairer basis for comparison across applicants.
With AI interviewer bots, the clunky interaction of speaking with a bot can often lead to corrupting the fidelity of the responses. When a candidate is interrupted, misinterpreted, or thrown off by lag, the resulting answer may not truly reflect their competence or allow them to showcase their best self.
Employer Brand and Public Perception
The risk to the employer brand is the most serious consideration.
When a candidate has a negative experience with a one-way video interview, the complaint is typically about the medium (the platform) or the questions that were asked.
As with any technology, not all video interviewing tools are created equal in quality, which is why working with a trusted vendor with ample candidate support, such as Spark Hire, is essential.
However, amplified by public concern over employers’ attempts to create a fake human interaction, when a candidate is frustrated by an AI avatar, the blame is often assigned directly to the employer brand.
Final Thoughts on this Modern Screening Tool Debate
The reality is that both recruiting solutions seek to gather similar data early in the screening process to help lean or under-resourced HR teams get in front of the best candidates more quickly.
However, the industry’s overall perception of AI avatars today seems predominantly that they are an attempt to create a “fake recruiter”.
While this may not always be the case as technology advances and AI becomes an even bigger player in the hiring tech space, today, companies risk their employer brand when they don’t spend the time trying to examine how the tool impacts the candidate experience and whether or not it may actually be yielding inaccurate results.
We’re dialed in on where this technology will go next. What are your thoughts?
Ready to transform your hiring process with Spark Hire Meet’s one-way video interviews? Reach out to our team of hiring experts today to get started.
