In a surprising shift, job interviews are increasingly taking place during unconventional hours, with many occurring late at night.
According to Ribbon AI, a voice-AI recruiting platform, about 25% of interviews facilitated by its service happen between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time. This figure climbs to 35% among its manufacturing clients, based on data from over 500 companies using Ribbon.
Arsham Ghahramani, Ribbon’s CEO, mentioned on the ThinkData podcast with Alex Hutchings that this trend might be attributed to working parents with limited free time and employees in noisy environments like factories and kitchens who find it difficult to secure a quiet interview spot during the day.
“What initially seems like a technology where you’re sort of removing the human out of the aspect, seems like maybe there will be like a disadvantage for the candidate, actually kind of flips the other way,” Ghahramani stated.
He further added, “Now you have candidates who could never have been interviewed before. That’s a huge accessibility piece.”
Ribbon reports that its AI interview tool enhances employee retention over 180 days by 10% to 30% for top clients, and a significant automotive company has accelerated hiring by 35% using the tool.
‘We are just not going back’
The adoption of AI in recruitment is on the rise as employers seek innovative methods to manage an increasing volume of applications. Two human resources experts expressed optimism to Business Insider regarding AI’s potential to transform the interview process.
Tim Sackett, a seasoned recruiter and CEO of HRUTech.com, told Business Insider that AI interviewing might be “the best thing to ever happen” to inclusive hiring. “For the first time in history, 100% of applicants are being able to interview and show their worth to the job,” Sackett explained. “I would estimate that we’ll begin to see more inclusion within roles and companies as well, as more and more people get their ‘at-bats’ in the hiring process.”
Steve Boese, Co-Chair of the HR Technology Conference, stated that the flexibility offered by technology is a “net positive” for candidates. “If hiring companies can offer 24/7 availability for these kinds of AI-brokered interviews, then they have removed a potential barrier for at least some candidates who by need or by choice will elect to take the interview at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m.,” Boese noted.
A Greenhouse survey from May indicated that nearly two-thirds of job seekers had been interviewed by an AI agent, reflecting a 13% increase over six months. However, 38% of US candidates reported to Greenhouse that they had opted out of a hiring process instead of participating in an AI interview, while another 12% stated they would do the same if AI interviews were mandatory.
The same survey revealed that 36% of respondents felt they were assessed differently due to age in both AI-led and human interviews, and 27% felt the same because of race or ethnicity.
Studies have shown that large language models can perpetuate stereotypes present in their training data. For instance, a 2025 Stanford study found that ChatGPT exhibited biases against older women and younger workers.
“While many people long for the ‘old days’ of live phone screens, in-person interviews, personal feedback, etc., we are just not going back to those processes at any scale,” Boese commented. “Tech has taken over most of the recruiting process, and AI is now replacing the legacy solutions.”
