Highly automated job interviews: Acceptance under the influence of stakes

Technological advancements allow the automation of every part of job interviews (information acquisition, information analysis, action selection, action implementation) resulting in highly-automated interviews. Efficiency advantages exist, but it is unclear how people react to such interviews (and whether reactions depend on the stakes involved). Participants (N = 123) in a 2 (highly-automated, videoconference) × 2 (high-stakes, lowstakes situation) experiment watched and assessed videos depicting a highly-automated interview for high-stakes (selection) and low-stakes (training) situations or an equivalent videoconference interview. Automated high-stakes interviews led to ambiguity and less perceived controllability. Additionally, highly-automated interviews diminished overall acceptance through lower social presence and fairness. To conclude, people seem to react negatively to highly-automated interviews and acceptance seems to vary based on the stakes.