The Problem Isn’t the Interview

The human interview — two people in a room, one asking questions, one answering — is not going away. And it shouldn’t. The moments that matter most in hiring happen in that conversation: reading body language, sensing culture fit, catching how someone thinks when they’re under pressure.

The problem isn’t the interview. The problem is everything that happens before it.

Recruiters drowning in resumes. Candidates waiting weeks for a response. First-round calls that could have been an email. Scheduling across time zones for a 20-minute conversation that tells you almost nothing. The pre-interview process is broken — and that’s exactly where AI belongs.

What I Built

That question led me to build jpbolzon.com — a site where you can interact with an AI-powered version of a candidate. Ask about their skills, their experience, their approach to problems, and get real, contextual answers back.

I built it using AI tools, which felt fitting. A machine helped me build a machine that represents a human.

It’s not a replacement for a conversation. It’s a filter before one.

The Pre-Interview Problem

Think about what a first-round screening call actually accomplishes. You confirm the candidate exists. You check that their resume wasn’t fictional. You get a rough sense of whether they can string sentences together. You ask two or three surface-level questions and decide if they’re worth an hour of someone’s time.

That’s it. And it takes weeks of back-and-forth scheduling to get there.

An AI pre-interview handles all of that — instantly, consistently, at any hour. By the time a real human sits down with a candidate, both sides have already earned that conversation. The recruiter knows the candidate is worth their time. The candidate knows the role is genuinely relevant to them.

The human interview becomes what it was always meant to be: a real conversation between two people who already have context.

Three Ways This Fits Into Hiring

Autonomous pre-screening at scale. A company posts a role and AI conducts structured first-round conversations with every applicant. No scheduling. No wasted calls. Humans only engage when there’s genuine signal worth pursuing.

Leveling the playing field for smaller companies. A startup with one recruiter can now process the same candidate volume as a large HR department — without sacrificing quality at the top of the funnel.

Candidate preparation. Flip the model entirely. The candidate uses AI to practice before the real interview. Sharpen answers, identify gaps, walk in more prepared than ever. Both sides show up better.

What It Won’t Replace

I want to be clear about what this isn’t.

AI pre-interviews won’t tell you if someone will thrive on your team. They won’t capture the energy someone brings into a room. They won’t replace the gut feeling an experienced hiring manager gets from a real conversation. They won’t make the final call.

They’re not supposed to.

The goal isn’t to automate hiring. It’s to protect the human parts of hiring by eliminating the mechanical parts that waste everyone’s time.

A Glimpse, Not a Product

My site is a prototype, not a product. One person’s experiment — a way of asking “what if?” and then actually building the answer.

But that’s how every shift starts. Someone builds a rough version of the future. The world argues about whether it’s a good idea. Meanwhile, the technology gets better.

The pre-interview won’t be a phone call forever. I just wanted to see what comes next.

Try it yourself at jpbolzon.com. Built with AI, for humans — for now.