The job recruitment process is many things. But most of all, it’s awkward.
Imagine this scenario: A headhunter named Zara invites you to meet over video. You tuck your button-down into your sweatpants. You brush the frizz out of your hair and angle your camera for direct eye contact. Once you’re let into the Zoom room, you make small talk about the weather. Then you remember that Zara has no real concept of what the sun feels like.
Though the recruiter has all the hallmarks of a millennial woman, in actuality, she is the synthetic avatar of an unfeeling AI.
Micro1, the Palo Alto startup that created Zara, is focused on turning AI toward job recruitment. While similar tools have been used in the past, few have been as lifelike as Zara, with her shoulder-length blonde balayage, trusting glimmer in her eyes, and dimples on either side of a pearly-white smile. As a plus, she works untiringly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and speaks 10 languages.
If you’re feeling the uncanny valley vibes, the Micro1 team validates your concerns.
“I know it sounds kind of dystopian and, like, a little scary,” said Daniel Warner, the company’s chief marketing officer. “I could totally understand that.” Even still, he said, Micro1’s solution to the first round of HR vetting is better, faster, and cheaper than traditional recruiting.
Here’s how she (it?) works: Zara sources relevant candidates registered on the company’s platform and invites them to complete an initial interview and an assessment — a coding exercise, say. After those are done, the AI sends the employer a summary of those tests and a video recording of the interview.
Micro1 insists that Zara doesn’t make the final call on who gets hired. But she does play an integral role. Warner anticipates that the tool can eventually automate 90% of the entire process, from interviewing candidates to sending reviews to companies. She can even onboard new employees.
Micro1 started by using AI to evaluate engineering job-seekers from around the world. Initially, it used a disembodied male voice. After combing through candidate-experience surveys, the company switched to a female voice. Studies have found people tend to prefer female-voiced AI because the interaction feels less intimidating. Adding Zara’s smiling face is only the latest step.
As for the name Zara? “It’s easy to say, it’s futuristic, and just sounds cool,” CEO Ali Ansari said.
The goal is to increase efficiency and cut costs. Warner said that Deel, a global payroll company, saved over 80% in recruitment costs in one month by turning to Zara.
Naturally, Micro1 is using the tool for its own recruiting. The 35-person team is deploying their innovations internally. They renamed their own recruiters “AI recruiter operators.”
There are a few kinks to work out, including figuring out just how front and center Zara will be in the hiring process. “We don’t want to present an AI system [as] a human,” Ansari said. Depending on feedback, one possibility is that candidates can decide whether to turn Zara’s camera on or off during the interview.
Another hurdle is public opinion. A 2023 Pew Research Center study found 71% of Americans oppose using AI to make final hiring decisions, while 66% said they would not want to apply for a job where an employer uses AI to help with hiring at all.
UC Berkeley computer science professor Hany Farid said the data aligns with what he’s hearing from his students, who are mostly unenthused about integrating AI into the job application process. While AI can cut costs — namely, by reducing human labor — Farid is skeptical that using avatars like Zara is a positive development for job seekers.
“It strikes me that the companies are doing this not because it’s good for employees,” he said. “They’re doing it because they save money.”
As employers start to rely on AI for recruiting, so too are candidates. A surge of applicants now use AI tools to write resumes and cover letters and spam-apply to positions, making it harder for legitimate job seekers to shine through.
Farid wishes this cycle would slow down. “Just because something is inevitable, it doesn’t mean you deploy [it],” he said.
For Micro1, there’s no time like the present.
Zara’s release underscores one ineradicable element of the job search: Few humans want to deal with the tedium and awkwardness of an introductory recruitment call.
Perhaps in the near future, applicants can mask their frizz with a synthetic AI that never has a bad hair day. What a time to be alive.