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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Why this tool?
With the rise of artificial intelligence, companies are increasingly using Asynchronous Video Interviews (AVIs) to assess job applicants. AVIs, which involve one-way online video interviews, are automatically analyzed using machine learning techniques to reduce costs and improve efficiency. However, there is little empirical evidence supporting the validity and reliability of AI-driven personality assessments.
What do we know from research?
To explore whether AVIs can reliably assess personality traits, researchers at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam developed their own AVI platform. Volunteers complete a personality inventory and participate in a mock job interview, while AI analyzes their words, voice, and facial expressions to infer personality traits. These AI-generated personality assessments are then compared to professional recruiters’ evaluations of the candidates’ hireability.
“Artificial intelligence promises to be a valid way to automatically assess personality traits from digital job interviews!”
How can this tool help you?
Preliminary findings suggest that automatic personality assessment from video interviews is both reliable and valid, provided that data collection and analysis follow rigorous scientific methods. This research has the potential to benefit recruiters and HR professionals looking for cost-effective, data-driven solutions to evaluate candidates’ personalities in a standardized way.
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
Koutsoumpis, A., Ghassemi, S., Oostrom, J.K., Holtrop, D.J., Van Breda, W., Zhang, T. & De Vries, R.E. (2024). Beyond traditional job interviews: Psychometric analysis of asynchronous job video interviews for personality and interview performance evaluation using machine learning. Computers in Human Behavior, 154(108128).