Surveilling Suitability: How AI Hiring Interviews Impact Job Seekers with Disabilities

Abstract

AI hiring interviews, asynchronous video recording platforms that use AI to assess candidate suitability, are increasingly used by employers to streamline hiring processes. These platforms often promise to standardize assessments and mitigate subjective biases in hiring decisions. Yet, little is known about how these technologies are perceived and experienced by people with disabilities, a group historically underrepresented in the workforce and particularly vulnerable to injustices perpetuated by technology. To address this gap, we conducted focus groups and semi-structured interviews with 19 people with disabilities. We found that people with disabilities perceive and experience discrimination by AI hiring interviews that: 1) center normative characteristics, 2) exacerbate information asymmetries, 3) undermine autonomy, and 4) intrude on privacy. We use the analytical frame of surveillance to interrogate the role of AI in reconfiguring social relations between job seekers and employers. We discuss implications of our work for design and policy.