To think companies should totally overhaul how they hire?

I can tell you’ve not done a job search lately - all the interviews I’ve had this year required a CV, cover letter / questions, then video recording before being invited to an in person interview.

AI may sift the first part, but there’s no hiding from the video recordings

This kind of thing has already been tried/exists - IMO (my job includes overseeing recruiting) the more random hoops to jump through like videos or multiple questions unrelated to the job, the less genuine candidates you get, and you end up with unqualified people who just have the time/inclination to jump through hoops. The best candidates don’t bother and will move on to applications that are more traditional.

And realistically AI goes both ways - people, even good candidates, need to use AI to help generate cover letters (and if they have good sense, then rewrite them) because of the sheer scale and state of recruitment. If you need to apply for 100 jobs to get an offer, do you really want to be writing 100 personalised cover letters/CV editions that highlight every key word of the job description (because otherwise the recruiters AI will screen it out automatically).

As a starting point, they could say eg: "please record a 2 minute video of yourself telling us about your experience to date" and then "please send us a 3 min video of you doing something you love".

How on earth would that be an improvement?

Agree with the basic premise, not sure what the best way to go about it is. Just reading all the threads about managers who should never be in charge of people shows how the recruitment process is not working as it should.

Remember AI will be used to sift through applications and that has its downsides. I spoke to someone at a law firm recently. She said they the piles of generic applications they receive don’t help anyone.

Some companies do this already as a first round. I did one for a law firm over 10 years ago.

Firms mostly use recruiters so won’t really know what processes are used. It’s smaller firms who recruit themselves that still more likely to use old fashioned processes of a simple application form, cv and covering letter.

But watching potentially dozens of short videos isn’t an answer as it would take far too much time - automatic sorting of online application forms creates a short list in seconds and skim reading cvs is also quick.