Exclusive Insight: A young man from Australia recounts his experience of being turned down for an entry-level position at Woolworths, without ever interacting with a single person during the recruitment process.

Jamie, a 24-year-old from New South Wales, described his application for a part-time role at his neighborhood Woolworths as unusual, involving two peculiar AI-driven interviews. Ultimately, he was informed of his rejection six weeks later.

He labeled the experience as “dystopian,” particularly surprising given that it involved “one of Australia’s most lucrative companies.”

In the 2024-25 period, Woolworths boasted profits nearing $1.4 billion.

“It’s astonishing that a company generating such substantial profits annually doesn’t have the resources to conduct human interviews,” Jamie remarked to 9news.com.au.

But experts say this is what the future of job hunting looks like.

Jamie applied for a role at his local Woolworths in September and said the online application mentioned “AI may be involved” in the hiring process.

He didn’t know what that meant at first.

“Almost immediately, I got the invite to do the first AI interview,” Jamie said.

He had to provide written answers to questions from a text-based AI chatbot within a time limit.

“It kind of made me wonder, who is actually looking over this after you’ve completed it?” he said, calling the interview “strange”.

A few days later, he got an email inviting him to another AI interview with a text-based chatbot.

This time he had to provide voice and video responses, which he wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

“I’m not sure how I feel about this really massive company having access to my voice and video,” he said.

Woolworths declined to comment, however 9news.com.au understands Woolworths uses AI as part of its hiring process for store roles.

Jamie said he didn’t hear back from Woolworths until about six weeks later, when he received a generic rejection email with no human feedback.

“That was really like a little kick in the guts,” he said.

He’s just grateful he was able to support himself financially while waiting to hear back.

“If you’re nearly destitute, or you’re really struggling, living paycheck to paycheck or on Centrelink, that six-week wait could kill you,” he said.

He shared his frustrations in a TikTok video which has since been viewed about 100,000 times.

Many Aussies like Jamie are resistant to the idea of AI job interviews but Associate Professor of workplace and business law at the University of Technology, Sydney Giuseppe Carabetta said we should probably get used to it.

“Larger organisations are using things like CV scanners, video interview analysis, and personality assessments or tests,” he told 9news.

“This is generally about faster screening and processes – but there are problems, including the risk of biases where you have AI replicating historical discrimination by humans (algorithmic discrimination).”

There is currently no legislation that directly regulates the use of AI in recruitment but anti-discrimination laws require employers to ensure that recruitment practices do not discriminate based on attributes like race, sex, and ability.

Those laws technically apply to AI systems, but they often “fall between the legal cracks” in recruitment.

For example, an employer could land in hot water if an AI recruitment system automatically rejects applicants with feminine-sounding names (gender discrimination).

But even that could be hard for an employee to prove or pursue legally, as anti-discrimination law normally applies to the actions of a physical person.

Carabetta said that AI use in recruitment is an area ripe for reform but ”unfortunately the law is slow to adapt and legislative reform is not easy or quick”.

And in the meantime, there’s not much Aussies can do to avoid AI interviews.

“There is no direct legal right for jobseekers to request a human interview instead of an AI one,” he said.

Aussies with a disability can request “reasonable adjustments” under the Disability Discrimination laws, which could include asking for a human interviewer.

“But for other candidates – for example, those uncomfortable with AI – there is no formal right to opt out of AI interviews.”

Jobseekers can try to take steps to secure a human interview, like asking early on if interviews will be conducted using AI and voicing a preference for human interaction.

They can also seek out employers that still emphasise ‘traditional’ recruitment methods, like handing in a physical resume, or reach out to hiring managers directly.

But there’s no guarantee any of that will prevent jobseekers from having to deal with AI at some point in the hiring process.

Carabetta encouraged Aussie jobseekers to learn how AI is used in modern hiring and try to adapt to it – because it’s “absolutely” not going away.