Comment by Jason Perillo

Building relationships with candidates is one of the most vital and least automatable parts of hiring. No chatbot can replicate the empathy, intuition, or trust that comes from a genuine human conversation. Candidates want to feel heard and understood—especially when weighing a career change. Over-automation here risks creating a cold, impersonal experience that drives strong candidates away instead of drawing them in. Final hiring decisions should never be fully automated. While AI can help surface red flags or suggest strong fits, human judgment is essential for weighing context, potential, and long-term alignment. There’s always more to a candidate than what shows up on paper or in a test. Removing people from the decision-making loop also increases the risk of perpetuating bias that may be built into the algorithm’s design.