The US federal government is preparing to use artificial intelligence to interview some job applicants, beginning with candidates for its new Tech Force programme, officials said.
The trial is expected to begin within days and will not initially apply across every federal agency. It will instead focus on the initiative, which recruits technology specialists from the private sector for temporary government roles lasting up to two years.
Applicants to the Tech Force pool will be assessed using CodeSignal, a recruitment platform that provides automated technical screening and virtual interviews.
Under the pilot, AI agents will ask candidates a standard set of questions and record their answers. The audio will then be transcribed and summarised for hiring managers to review before decisions are made.
CodeSignal offers employers a range of automated screening tools, including voice, telephone, text-based and virtual-agent interviews. Its system allows recruiters to examine transcripts and recordings rather than conducting every initial interview themselves.
The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources department, has encouraged agencies to consider AI at different stages of recruitment, while insisting that people remain responsible for important personnel decisions.
Adam Starr, OPM’s chief information officer and senior adviser to its director, said every federal agency was now capable of adopting AI in hiring. The office says the technology could help reduce the average time taken to fill a federal post, which it puts at 87 days.
The move marks a significant shift for an employer with about 1.9 million workers, which has generally lagged behind the private sector in using automated interviews as an initial filter for large-scale recruitment campaigns.
OPM director Scott Kupor has made speeding up the federal hiring process a priority. He has also urged agencies to increase the proportion of early-career recruits as the government seeks to address an ageing workforce.
The US Tech Force was established to bring engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity specialists and other technology experts into government. OPM’s plan envisages annual cohorts of about 1,000 fellows, working directly within agencies on projects including artificial intelligence, software engineering and digital modernisation.
AI is already being used more extensively by personnel staff on government computers, where approved tools include Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Officials expect automated interviewing to become a more common feature of federal recruitment in the coming years.
