Lumen uses HireVue, a completely automated (no human interaction), interviewing platform for the first, (what in most firms would be an HR screening), interview. At first, I balked at the idea of being videorecorded for the interview. To me, being forced to engage in this process seemed impersonal (and at least a little disrespectful), as I’m a senior-level sales professional, I’d already filled out an incredibly detailed application with Lumen online, AND I was referred/endorsed by one of their regional vice presidents. So mostly out of curiosity, I did the online/interview, which took about 30-45 minutes. The system uses AI analytics to score responses to 6 (standard and relevant) questions I supplied and the outcome of 3 logic/cognition tests I took. I realized after having spent the 30+ minutes doing the interview, that Lumen had collected MUCH more relevant information about my abilities and experience than would have been gathered during nearly any standard HR screening interview. Also, I received a report on my performance within one hour of completing the process. A lot of vaguely positive words in the report - but no objective score to indicate whether I placed in the top x% of respondents, etc. To me, the report detail seemed more like a “feel good” response for the candidate. It was definitely not yes/no - on moving forward in the interview process. So from a time management perspective, pretty efficient! Within two days, I received a canned response from Lumen that they weren’t moving forward. No surprise on that - because essentially their HireVue interview is really a deeper-dive multimedia version of AI screening a resume - except that in using it, they’re also “training” their AI on respondent interaction profiles - facial expressions, voice pitch/cadence, linguistics, etc. Given that I GAVE a lot of info to Lumen/HireVue I’m pretty guarded with providing my personal information, but I engaged in this process in good faith because I believed that doing so - plus my successful sales background - plus the personal recommendation of the VP for the role would cumulatively assure me of an in-person hiring manager interview. But in retrospect I realized I had NO assurances of how Hire use or Lumen would store or use the video, my detailed answers, or my personal identity information, including my facial image, voiceprint, sentence structures/delivery (vocal inflections, cadence, phrasing, etc) for question responses, or the scoring outcomes on the psychological profile, cognitive skills, and critical thinking/logic games I completed. Interestingly, after I completed this process, the contact who referred/endorsed me for this role told me that Lumen’s Recruiting function within HR is internally known as a “black hole” of gatekeeping for poorly identifying sales talent, and also that this was true prior to Lumen using the HireVue platform. He was somewhat apologetic that I went to the trouble of the process, and disappointed that yet again, his HR team denied his recommendation and had in the process created new ways of disregarding their sales leader’s discretion in recommending a candidate, but now, they’ve added invading the privacy of, while also offending qualified candidates. If what Lumen is doing, represents the present/future state of talent search and hiring, I’m definitely glad to be nearing the end of my career!