Assessing Personality with Artificial Intelligence
PhD project of Antonis Koutsoumpis (February 1st 2019 – July 30st 2023) under the supervision of Prof. dr. Reinout de Vries, dr. Janneke Oostrom, and dr. Sina Ghassemi. In collaboration with Marian de Joode and Ivo Winkes (LTP business psychologists).
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With the advent of artificial intelligence methods, companies are adopting more and more Asynchronous Video Interview methods (AVI: one-way online video interviews) to automatically assess job applicants. AVIs are automatically analyzed using machine learning techniques that reduce costs and increase effectiveness. However, empirical support for the validity and reliability of AVI machine learning methods is notoriously missing.
To explore the validity and reliability of automatic personality assessment, we developed our own AVI platform at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. On this platform, volunteers can complete a personality inventory and do a mock job interview. State-of-the-art machine learning approaches infer personality traits from their words, voice, and facial expressions. These personality Inferences are then validated and used to predict their hireability, as rated by professional recruiters from the videos.
“Artificial intelligence promises to be a valid way to automatically assess personality traits from digital job interviews!”
Early results suggest that automatic personality assessment from video interviews is possible, and yields reliable and valid results when data collection and analysis are methodologically rigorous. The end product of our project might benefit recruiters and practitioners who are looking for cost-effective and science-based methods to automatically assess personality traits from job interviews.
Find out more
Hickman, L., Bosch, N., Ng, V., Saef, R., Tay, L., & Woo, S. E. (2021). Automated video interview personality assessments: Reliability, validity, and generalizability investigations. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. Link
Experience an AVI and get instant feedback on your emotions and personality (and help us collect some data) here.