ROBOTIC RECRUITER

If you've ever wondered about your interview techniques in front of others, or the psychology at play between you and the HR or middle manager, then imagine the next-gen dynamic that's already happening in Sweden: firms trialling an in-person interview robot. It makes HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey all seem a bit, well, turn of the century.

Stockholm-based recruitment firm TNG, one of Sweden's largest, is using a robot called Tengai to conduct interviews with potential job candidates, which consists of a head that sits or projects from a table, facing the interviewee at eye-level.

Tengai measures 41 centimeters high and weighs 3.5 kg. It also has something of a human-like face, so it isn't entirely manufactured but something closer to androidal. Its glowing face can tilt from side to side, and it blinks and smiles, thus mimicking not just our subtle facial expressions but also the way we speak.

Tengai is the brainchild of Furhat Robotics, an artificial intelligence and social robotics company forged out of a research project that began at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

The creators of Tengai insist that rather than robbing an interview of genuine person-to-person interaction, the android offers interviews that can be free from unconscious biases often exhibited by human interaction.

According to research conducted last year, TNG estimates that 73 percent of job applicants in Sweden believe they have been discriminated against while applying for a job, based on factors including their age, gender, ethnicity, handicap, sexual preference, appearance, weight or health.

"It typically takes about seven seconds for someone to make a first impression, and about five to 15 minutes for a recruiter to make a decision," says TNG's chief innovation officer, Elin Öberg Mårtenzon. "We want to challenge that."

For now, you'll have to be a Swedish speaker to interact and interview with Tengai. Recruiters and developers are diving into an English-language version that's expected to hit companies and boardrooms by early 2020. Meet Tengai; it's AI－and your new HR.

CDLP