The Emergence of Late-Night Job Interviews

When Tim Millard received an email in January regarding an interview for a media relations position—six months into his job search—he expected to converse with a recruiter. Instead, he was asked to record responses to a series of questions on camera, leading to a feeling of resignation he had become all too familiar with during his search.

“I thought, I have to do this if I want to be considered for the job,” Millard shared with WIRED. That night, the Atlanta-based communications and marketing professional cleaned up his living room and prepared his laptop. Since the email didn’t specify a time, he figured it was best to complete the task as soon as possible. “What else was I going to do at 9:30 at night?”

The questions were standard fare for the position. What strategies would Millard use to pitch to the media? How would he nurture relationships with local journalists? Yet, the format felt odd. He sat before his laptop, watching a question appear on the screen, given only about thirty seconds to contemplate his answer.

“Once the 30 seconds were up, ‘ding!’ Now you have two minutes to record your response,” Millard recalled. “It felt surreal.”

In March, Millennium received an automated rejection email. However, this experience unwittingly positioned him in the midst of a trend that is transforming modern job searches. As automated video interviews and AI grow in popularity within recruitment, late-night interviews are also becoming more common.

Arsham Ghahramani observed this late-night trend shortly after co-founding and launching Ribbon, a company specializing in voice-AI recruitment software. According to data from over 500 companies using the service, 24 percent of Ribbon’s AI interviews occur between 10 PM and 2 AM local time, with that number rising to 35 percent for manufacturing clients.

“This presents a genuinely new option for candidates,” Ghahramani explains. Many parents cannot find 30 minutes to spare until after 10 PM, nor can hourly workers or those busy in their current jobs on noisy factory floors or in kitchens. “Some individuals have limited opportunities regarding when and how they can interview.”

Ribbon is not the sole platform witnessing the rise of late-night interviews. Hiring platform Greenhouse reports that approximately 15 to 20 percent of candidates interviewed by its voice agent now schedule interviews at night.

Ophir Samson, who became the head of Greenhouse’s voice AI division when the company acquired his startup in May, told WIRED that he believes AI should not entirely replace human interviews. This is fortunate, as many applicants remain skeptical of AI-driven interviews.

While a Greenhouse survey in May revealed that nearly two-thirds of job seekers had undergone an interview with an AI agent—an increase of 13 points in six months—most people are not particularly thrilled about this change. Thirty-eight percent of American candidates admitted to withdrawing from a hiring process rather than face an AI interview, and another 12 percent indicated they would bail if an AI interview was mandatory.

One significant concern for candidates is the lack of clarity regarding how their footage will be utilized. Could AI dismiss them outright for failing to use specific buzzwords?

Although different employers and services vary in their processes, standard AI or automated video interviews are evaluated based on a rubric that changes from job to job. For instance, a welder may be asked about particular technical skills or certifications in a Ribbon interview, while a sales position might assess an “enthusiasm” score. The AI analyzes the interview footage to determine how well the candidate aligns with the rubric and assigns a score, which is forwarded to the recruiter along with the video—though, in reality, many of these interviews often go unwatched by humans.