The Red Sox caught heat for using an AI screener in job interviews. Applicants explain what the ‘really impersonal' process was like.
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'This is one of several steps in the hiring process and is just one factor that helps determine which candidates should advance to an in-person interview,' the statement continued. 'This tool is in no way a replacement for in-person interviews, simply one of many steps that helps the club screen the many candidates who apply for each job posting.'
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Of course, the simple fact that the Sox' hiring efforts aren't being led by AI bots doesn't mean that their process is beyond reproach.
Multiple individuals who interviewed with the Sox as well as other clubs last year described the Sox' process as discouragingly impersonal, with infrequent human interaction relative to other teams. That view isn't universally held, but it's sufficiently widespread — and most recently, caricatured as robotic — that it's worth examining.
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The Sox post positions widely across a number of job boards such as Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus, an approach meant to draw a broad candidate pool but that also yields massive responses to posted positions. According to the team, baseball operations listings solicit from 500 to 3,000 submissions of online résumés and cover letters.
Typically, someone in human resources screens the applications to highlight strong candidates. That narrowed pool of applications will then be directed to a small group of employees in the relevant sub-department in baseball operations (development, acquisitions, baseball sciences, etc.) for further résumé screening.
Once a list of strong candidates has been identified for a baseball operations position — say, 50 to 100 — the HR representative will reach out to that group to invite them to continue in the process. A form letter invites candidates both to conduct a HireVue interview and to complete a 'problem set' of multiple exercises.
HireVue is a software program through which candidates take part in an automated, standardized, 10- to 15-minute interview. The Sox have used it to varying degrees since 2012, when Ben Cherington was general manager. Candidates are given a series of a few questions. After each, they're afforded a brief window to contemplate a response, and a few minutes to speak. People across the Sox organization can then review the video at any time.
A form letter sent by a team HR representative to an applicant last fall explained that HireVue is used to standardize the interview process (all applicants receive the same questions), to increase the convenience of setting up and scheduling remote interviews, and to make it easier for a number of people throughout the organization to see the candidate's interview.
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Views on its use are mixed. One person who'd encountered HireVue in other industries thought it was a logical early step in an application process.
'I actually think HireVue is a pretty good screening process,' said one person who applied for a Red Sox job last year, and who has interviewed with other clubs. 'I would say [the Red Sox hiring process] was pretty run-of-the-mill for interviewing for a baseball ops job with an MLB club.'
Others found it less than ideal, and preferred the approach of other clubs that conduct anywhere from one to several phone or Zoom interviews near the outset of the process.
'I didn't leave the [HireVue] interview thinking to myself, 'Oh, that was an AI interview. That was bad,' ' said one candidate. 'But was it my preferred method to interview? Absolutely not. It's really impersonal. You can't really develop that personal and human-to-human connection.'
'It's just very awkward and cold,' said another.
The problem sets, meanwhile, examine how candidates evaluate players through both video and data, and how they communicate their findings.
For example, past problem sets included choosing between Atlanta pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach and Nationals outfielder James Wood as extension candidates and formulating a realistic extension proposal; explaining how an individual — using a series of spreadsheets — balanced both surface-level performance data and ball-tracking data to identify prospects; and critiquing a predictive model for player performance.
Problem sets have become common in applications for MLB teams, but the Sox' is viewed as more exhaustive (and exhausting) than most. Candidates required anywhere from 5-10 hours to 50-60 hours to formulate responses to the problem sets.
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'They're time-consuming, is the biggest thing,' said one person who took part in problem sets for the Sox and at least one other team last year.
Moreover, the lack of direct interaction with Sox employees through that stage of the process left some applicants confused about whether the team was more interested in seeing candidates come up with a 'correct' answer or a logical process.
According to sources familiar with the team's hiring practices, both the HireVue interview and problem sets are reviewed by team employees, who then winnow the candidate pool to roughly a half-dozen candidates for Zoom or phone interviews, usually with a goal of identifying two final candidates for any given position. Finalists can interview with multiple assistant GMs and directors.
One applicant who had three remote interviews with multiple higher-ups in the organization called the process both well-organized and efficient — ranking it in the middle of the six interviews across five organizations he'd experienced. That individual also expressed appreciation for a follow-up call with a member of the Sox offering feedback about why his candidacy had fallen short.
'I see what they're trying to do,' he said of the process.
Others who didn't make it to that end stage had less favorable experiences given the lack of human contact with members of the Sox. The sense of the team's impersonal approach to hiring was amplified last year by the fact that multiple applicants, after completing the problem set and HireVue interview, received the same emailed form letter, with the same unfortunate top-level sentence:
'Thank you for your interest in working for the Boston Red Sox and applying for the {{insert job title}}.'
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'I didn't go further than that line. I kind of laughed and closed out the email,' said one applicant. 'That was the part that upset me in the moment. I still look back and laugh on it.'
Alex Speier can be reached at
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The Red Sox caught heat for using an AI screener in job interviews. Applicants explain what the ‘really impersonal' process was like.
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