AI guidelines
Guidelines for using AI in our interviewing process
As your prospective employer, Greenhouse has outlined our policy on how we use AI in hiring and how candidates are permitted to use AI in our hiring processes.
What you need to know about AI when applying to Greenhouse
Knowing that the way we experience AI may evolve over time, we will regularly review our approach to AI to stay aligned with current legislation and mitigate potential biases in our processes.
Please note that the principles and policies below reflect the position of Greenhouse Software, Inc. as it relates to our own hiring. Customers who use Greenhouse to power their talent acquisition processes are entitled to their own principles and policies.
Our guiding principles
Every prospective Greenhouse employee brings a unique set of abilities and perspectives. As an employer, we believe we can unlock true human potential when we add the right person to the right team at the right time. That’s why we designed our interview processes to help us get to know you – your intelligence, your skills and your experience. We seek to uncover your independent ability to think and perform in real-time settings based on your lived experiences, and how those could align with and even add to our company values.
We understand that using AI personally and professionally is becoming more common, and possibly even expected. However, for key aspects of our interview processes, it’s important that your work product reflects your unique perspective, rather than AI-generated content. To that end, we expect candidates to follow the policies detailed below when using AI while interviewing at Greenhouse. In turn, we’ve outlined how we use and plan to use AI in our hiring processes.
We know that how you perform in an interview can be enhanced by how you prepare. We expect you to use resources available to you in your preparation process, inclusive of conducting online research, tapping your networks, asking your recruiter clarifying questions and, yes, even using AI. However, we ask that you do not use AI to supplement your performance in a live interview, unless otherwise instructed or agreed upon.
Policies for individual interview stages
Candidates are increasingly using AI to support them in their job searches, and we are interested in understanding how you plan to use AI in your interviews with Greenhouse. If we determine in any stage of our interviews that AI is being used outside of the parameters below without disclosure or citation, your candidacy may be disqualified. In addition, we may contact references as appropriate to verify key qualifications and experiences you’ve represented in our interview process.
Regardless of how AI may evolve, Greenhouse does not tolerate plagiarism or misrepresentation of job-related skills from candidates.
* If you are interviewing with Greenhouse and have any questions about our policies or guidelines above, please contact the Candidate Experience Specialist or Talent Acquisition Manager facilitating your process.
Using AI to assist you in building your resume or cover letter is acceptable. However, we expect the application materials you submit to represent your qualifications and skills accurately. If we determine that these have been misrepresented, your candidacy may be disqualified.
Our interviews are designed to test your ability to demonstrate skills needed for the role you’re interviewing for. We seek to understand your interpersonal and collaborative abilities, and how that would translate into the job. We ask that you engage in our interviews without reading from or referencing AI-produced answers. If we detect that you are doing so without permission or advance disclosure, your candidacy may be disqualified.
We are interested in what you create, not what you copy. Any take-home assignment you submit should reflect your original conclusions and perspectives around our job-relevant prompt. You are welcome to research a topic in an approach that works for you. At the same time, keep in mind that AI content can come with limitations, inclusive of wordiness and over-generalized answers. We expect the assignment you ultimately submit to be a reflection of your own synthesis and perspective.
We strive to create coding assessments that simulate the work an engineer at Greenhouse would perform, which may include the use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Co-pilot. We welcome transparent use of generative AI in the interview process for certain roles with the expectation that candidates can thoroughly explain the prompts they create and/or discuss in-depth the technical decisions they make.
How Greenhouse’s Talent Acquisition team uses AI
In recognizing both the promise and limitations of AI in today’s world of work, our Talent Acquisition team takes great care to be methodical with how we use AI in hiring. We have no evidence to believe that AI is capable of making reliable end-to-end hiring decisions without human intervention, and therefore we believe AI should supplement, not replace, human judgment and decision-making. As AI comes with flaws and risks, including bias, we view it as a co-pilot that can make hiring teams more efficient, not an auto-pilot that eliminates the need for human oversight.
A comprehensive outline of how we use AI in our hiring processes
For job descriptions – Our hiring managers and recruiters may use AI-generated content as a starting point for developing accurate and inclusive job descriptions.
For interview questions – Our recruiters may use AI to assist in building questions that are relevant to the attributes being tested for in an interview process.
For sourcing messages – Our hiring teams may use AI tools to help create compelling messaging for prospective candidates.
For all of the above – Our final product does not reflect an unaltered AI-produced output in that it always incorporates critical human input.
Greenhouse uses AI in our resume parsing process to locate resume details that may identify a candidate. This is used to support our resume anonymization functionality. This means some resume details, like names, are kept anonymous to create a fair and equitable evaluation of candidates.
With candidate and interviewer consent, we use AI to transcribe and summarize our interviews, which lessens the reliance on the note-taking skills of an interviewer and mitigates the hiring delays and potential bias caused by incomplete documentation of interview feedback. We have seen positive results in the time saved by streamlining note-taking.
Connecting you with more information
For additional ways Greenhouse is embracing AI into our product, read this message from Greenhouse’s Chief Product Officer.