Goldman Sachs wants those applying for jobs at the investment bank to stop relying on AI while interviewing — a glaring double standard, considering it's made massive bets of its own on the tech, launched its own AI platform and rolled out AI tools across its businesses.
As Fortune reports, the bank's campus recruitment team sent out an email, warning students that "Goldman Sachs prohibits the use of any external sources, including ChatGPT or Google search engine, during the interview process."
The financial services company even outsourced the triaging of job candidates to the video interviewing firm HireVue — a talent evaluation platform that's powered by AI. Applicants have 30 seconds to prepare and two minutes to give answers to questions.
Instead of cribbing from a chatbot, in other words, applicants will have to learn rote datapoints about the company's financial results and core values by heart. That's the workplace of the future, baby!
The company's policy obviously rings hypocritical. On one hand, Goldman Sachs has long boasted that generative AI will boost productivity, yet those who are trying to kickstart a career are somehow not allowed to make use of the tech.
Despite having launched a proprietary AI assistant for its employees to summarize emails and translate code in January, the company says that it cares about what its future staffers have to say for themselves.
"This language is consistent with what we send to any of our campus applicants across all positions," spokesperson Jennifer Zuccarelli told Fortune. "We want to hear from our applicants in their own voice."
It's not just investment banks barring job applicants from using AI. In an arguably even more egregious example, leading AI company Anthropic — yes, the folks building AI, including the chatbot Claude — wrote in job postings that "we want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system."
Amazon has equally warned recruiters that any candidates who are caught using the tech should be disqualified, as Business Insider reported in February.
"To ensure a fair and transparent recruitment process, please do not use GenAl tools during your interview unless explicitly permitted," the e-commerce giant wrote in internal guidelines. "Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in disqualification from the recruitment process."
That's despite Amazon encouraging staffers to use AI tools to boost productivity and pouring immense resources into the tech.
It's reflective of a broader trend. The already-abysmal job-seeking industry has dramatically changed with the advent of human resources-specific AI tools. Both recruiters and applicants are making heavy use of the tech, whether they're allowed to or not, turning an already soul-sucking process into an even more insufferable experience.
Case in point, a deranged video that went viral last month shows an AI-powered job recruiter melting down during a call with a human applicant.
Having companies threaten to disqualify job seekers for using AI isn't just the peak of hypocrisy, it's a race to the bottom that needlessly puts strain on those who are simply looking for employment.
More on AI and job search: AI Is Helping Job Seekers Lie, Flood the Market, and Steal Jobs
Share This Article