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Марія БровінськаAI Eng
11 December 2025, 09:00
2025-12-11
EPAM is testing a robot for candidate selection, Master of Code Global is developing an AI assistant for recruiting, and Railsware is preparing to experiment with an AI avatar for interviews in 2026. Is interviewing with a robot really a new reality that makes hiring easier?
While the world debates whether AI will take over jobs, IT companies are already handing over some of their interviews to it. AI avatars conduct initial interviews, ask questions, analyze responses, and pass only «cleaned» candidates to recruiters. This saves teams time and changes the very culture of tech hiring.
It’s no wonder that in 2025 you can come to an interview… and not talk to a person. AI avatars that imitate recruiters are becoming a new trend in IT hiring: they are fast, impartial, and ready to work 24/7. dev.ua asked how leading Ukrainian employers feel about using AI avatars in interviews. Some are already practicing, some employers are preparing to implement AI in hiring, but there are also those who prefer purely live contact with the candidate at all stages.
While the world debates whether AI will take over jobs, IT companies are already handing over some of their interviews to it. AI avatars conduct initial interviews, ask questions, analyze responses, and pass only «cleaned» candidates to recruiters. This saves teams time and changes the very culture of tech hiring.
It’s no wonder that in 2025 you can come to an interview… and not talk to a person. AI avatars that imitate recruiters are becoming a new trend in IT hiring: they are fast, impartial, and ready to work 24/7. dev.ua asked how leading Ukrainian employers feel about using AI avatars in interviews. Some are already practicing, some employers are preparing to implement AI in hiring, but there are also those who prefer purely live contact with the candidate at all stages.
Kateryna Zdor, Senior Recruitment Manager, ERAM Ukraine
The introduction of AI into the hiring process poses a number of challenges for both candidates and companies. As recruiters, we are faced with a phenomenon we call deepfakes, where candidates use AI masks or even involve multiple people under the guise of one avatar to get through an interview. We equate this with fraud and immediately stop considering such a candidate.
To be prepared for different situations, EPAM has developed training for recruiters, and we are also adapting internal systems to automatically flag suspicious cases. If a candidate reaches the stage of an interview with a real specialist (because the first stages are already underway in some countries), the recruiter conducts a check: he may ask to perform a simple action, switch to Ukrainian, ask about the weather in Kyiv (or another city) right now, or details about education. There are many options, but one thing is for sure: the work of a recruiter with the spread of AI has become much more interesting and at the same time has received more challenges.
At the same time, I positively evaluate the use of robots for initial analysis and selection of candidates, as it significantly speeds up the recruiting process compared to communicating with a live person. We are currently testing this option in locations where there is a high workload on recruiters and technical interviewers.
An interview with a robot is simple: the candidate’s experience is checked against the key requirements of the position, language skills, location, etc. Soft skills testing is the domain of real specialists. I would like to note that we do not make a robotic interview mandatory. The candidate can choose live contact from the beginning, it will just take more time. From experience, most people are interested in the opportunity to communicate with a robot. However, I consider the use of AI avatars or robots at the stage of the main interview with a recruiter inappropriate, because it destroys live contact, which is key.
Overall, I am enthusiastic about AI. If integrated into the interview process wisely, it can significantly improve the quality of interviews and speed up the hiring process. AI can also optimize the English testing process. In the future, AI will be able to help with basic technical interviews, saving time for busy professionals.
The main disadvantage of using AI is the risk of fraud and attempts to «fix» results, which requires constant attention from recruiters and interviewers and the development of protective mechanisms.
Kateryna Kokhanova, Talent Fulfillment Manager at Ciklum
We currently do not use or plan to implement AI avatars for interviewing. Instead, we are actively integrating other AI tools into recruiting — primarily to automate routine processes, prepare materials, conduct analytics, and improve candidate sourcing.
When it comes to communicating with candidates, we see much greater value in live communication and a personalized approach. These stages have a strong impact on mutual understanding, motivation, and the quality of the assessment.
At the same time, we are completely in favor of automating everything that does not harm the candidate experience, so we continue to explore which AI solutions can make the process faster and more efficient in the future.
Maria Simantseva, Recruitment Team Lead at Sigma Software
At the moment, we do not use AI avatars, but we still prefer a personal and individual approach. Live communication allows us to better understand the motivation, character and soft skills of the candidate, which makes the assessment much more qualitative.
The advantages of AI avatars are time savings at the initial stages, the same approach to all candidates, and automation of routine tasks.
Possible disadvantages: loss of live contact and nuances in communication, risk of misinterpretation of answers, not all candidates feel comfortable communicating with an avatar, more difficult to assess motivation and soft skills.
In general, we are positive about the development of such technologies and do not rule out their use in the future, but for now it is important for us to maintain an individual approach and high-quality interaction with candidates.
Victoria Tomchynska, IT Recruitment Director & Head of Talent Office, ZONE3000
Modern AI avatars are complex software capable of analyzing emotions, reading facial expressions, structuring dialogue, and making quick, fairly accurate decisions. In 2026, this is no longer futurism, but a real technological leap, which our recruiting team is closely monitoring, periodically testing new tools.
Avatars are really strong in logic and consistency, but even top models still haven’t learned how to convey emotion. Their strength is in structure, not in live communication.
For recruiting, such solutions are a potential boost: they speed up the process, remove some of the routine, and help to conduct a high-quality initial screening. But hiring is not just a matrix of hard skills. It is always a matter of mutual interest, where the employer chooses the candidate, and the candidate chooses the team and future colleagues. And this is where the human factor becomes decisive.
We are closely watching the industry and the reaction of specialists at different levels. The market clearly shows: completely replacing the live stage with an AI avatar reduces engagement and does not add trust. Especially in the high-level talent segment, where context, intonation, emotion and the very «human vibe» matter. Therefore, we are not ready to systematically introduce avatars into our hiring, not because the technology is weak, but because the market is not yet ready to give up human contact. Our process is based on relationships. We work with the individuality of each candidate and the expectations of the customer, building a unique story from the first contact to the offer. And it is important to us that this path remains high-quality, transparent and alive. The combination of technology and human experience is a formula that works for the long term. We follow the development of AI avatars, but the foundation of recruiting remains a person. And this is exactly what the market wants now.
Natalia Yerisova, Head of Global Recruitment at Master of Code Global
AI avatars in recruiting are already a reality and a natural step in the evolution of processes. I am positive about this if the technology enhances the work of the recruiter, not replaces it.
Our company is currently developing an AI assistant that takes over the initial stage of selection: analyzing profiles, asking clarifying questions, and forming clear conclusions. This removes routine and gives recruiters more time for what cannot be automated — live interaction and assessing cultural fit.
Pros: speed, standardized screening, less administrative burden. Cons: need for quality control, transparency, and avoidance of algorithmic errors and biases.
Our bot is still in development, but it already shows potential as a tool that makes the process simpler, faster, and at the same time human-centric.
Daryna Kuzmyk, Talent&Culture Lead, Railsware
As an IT company, we generally support the development and use of AI in various processes. However, we approach this with wisdom and some caution. The market is currently in a transformation phase: the tools are becoming more mature, but not all candidates are yet accustomed to the format of interaction with AI avatars or robots during interviews. Therefore, it is important for us not to «break» the candidate experience, but to give people time to accept this reality and gradually adapt.
We plan to involve AI in the hiring process at different stages. We are currently choosing an effective tool for sourcing and part of the interview process. Today, we are already using AI agents to record interviews, create notes, populate the candidate management system, and help prepare feedback for job seekers. Next year, we plan to experiment with AI agents specifically for conducting interviews: we will start from one position, look at the results, candidate reactions, and the impact on the quality of hiring — and only then will we decide how to scale the approach.
Among the advantages, I would like to note speed and scalability. AI can take over routine and repetitive parts of the process (initial screens, information collection, standardized questions), which speeds up work with the pipeline without losing quality. In addition, if you delegate the technical and administrative part to AI, recruiters and hiring managers will have more resources for live communication where it really matters: motivation, cultural fit, nuances of career expectations. And, of course, AI helps to standardize data collection, reduce random errors, and better record decisions and reasoning.
What shortcomings have we seen? There is a hypothesis that some people may refuse to communicate with an AI agent or perceive it as a «cold» process. For now, this is just a hypothesis and we plan to test it in practice. It is also important for candidates to understand what exactly AI does and how the information is used. Therefore, clear rules, ethics and transparent communication are needed here. Also, keep in mind that any AI tools can reproduce or reinforce the biases of the data on which they were trained. The final decision should remain with people, and the tools need to be regularly checked and adjusted.
There are two sides to the same coin here. If we talk about mass recruitment for popular positions, for example, FrontEnd/React developers, then avatars can be very effective: there is a high demand, it relieves the recruiter, you can ask the same questions and get clean data. If there is also an opportunity to integrate it with ATS, then this is generally an ideal option.
If we talk about our field, blockchain, and the positions we hire for, then a much more personalized approach is needed. There are vacancies for which there are very few relevant candidates, and we are mostly engaged in headhunting. For headhunting and finding a very narrow pool of specialists, avatars will definitely not work, because individual interaction is needed here. So it is obvious that one approach cannot be applied to all vacancies.
In general, we can say that for large enterprise companies, for example, AI avatars are truly a solution and a relief for recruiters and, possibly, interviewers. However, for companies with selective and complex vacancies, where headhunting is actively used, avatars will not yet become an effective tool.
However, automation is generally always appropriate if it covers important points in the work and allows you to save time. If this does not happen, then its use simply does not make sense.
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