Can You Turn Down the AI Interview and Stay in the Running?

What You're Actually Consenting To

The consent screen before an AI-scored interview asks permission for one thing: letting a model score your recorded answers alongside, or instead of, a person. HireVue's own published explainability statement says its AI relies only on what you say, using no video analysis and no other audio characteristics, so not your facial expressions, your background, or your tone of voice ¹. What you are agreeing to may be narrower than the checkbox implies.

That is a vendor describing its own product, not an independent audit, and it covers that vendor's AI-scored interviews only. Other platforms configure their own consent flows and score differently, so treat any specific claim about what an AI evaluates as true of that platform until you have a reason to think otherwise, not as a rule about AI interviews in general. It is also a claim about the scoring model rather than about the recording: the video still exists and recruiters still watch it.

A different format complicates this further. Some vendors run a live, conversational AI interviewer rather than a recorded one-way round. micro1's candidate-facing guide describes a conversational interview with its AI recruiter covering open-ended technical questions, scenario questions about how you think and communicate, and a coding challenge, ending in a real-time result ⁸. That is one company's screening product rather than an industry norm, and what any given format evaluates is set by whichever vendor built it, so ask directly and get the answer in writing.

Where Consent Is a Legal Requirement, Not Just a Formality

In at least two states, that checkbox is statute, not company policy. Illinois' Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act, in force since 2020, requires an employer to notify you, explain what the AI evaluates, and get your consent before AI analysis of a video interview for an Illinois-based role ². Maryland has separately required a signed waiver since October 1, 2020 before a facial recognition service creates a facial template during an applicant's interview ³.

Illinois also bars evaluating any applicant who has not consented ². The Maryland rule is narrower than it sounds: it reaches facial templates, not video recording, not voice, and not AI scoring of what you say ³. Elsewhere the checkbox is a term of the application and carries no equivalent weight, so check the rule for the state the role sits in rather than the state you are sitting in.

Neither statute attaches a penalty to an employer that ignores it. The Illinois Act as compiled names no enforcement agency and no private right to sue under it ⁴, and the Maryland section prescribes no penalty and no express private right of action ³. Under those two Acts the practical protection is the ability to withhold consent, not recourse afterward. Other law may reach the same facts, which is a question for a lawyer in that state and not something either statute answers.

Ask for an Alternative Format Before You Decide to Decline

A request for an alternative format is a different act from an outright refusal, and it belongs before any decision to decline. Ask the recruiter directly, in writing, whether a live conversation, a written response, or a call with a person is available instead of the AI-scored round, and keep the message to the format and the scheduling.

On at least one major platform, declining AI scoring is already a named option: HireVue's published statement says a candidate who opts out completes the same assessment, with recruiters manually reviewing and rating the responses against the same rating scales, and that the consent statement must tell candidates opting out will not exclude them from the hiring process ⁵. That is one vendor's stated design, and the consent screen is configurable by the employer deploying it, so what you are actually shown may differ even there. Confirm by asking rather than assuming.

A short, specific message beats a general objection. Name the round, ask whether a live call or a written response is available in place of it, and say you are happy to proceed on whichever path the recruiter can offer. That gives the person reading it a clear, low-effort action to take instead of a position to respond to.

Know What Usually Happens If You Decline

Be plain with yourself about the cost before you send anything: declining an AI interview with no alternative on offer often ends the application, particularly at a smaller employer running one path through the process. In a 2025 preprint reporting a field experiment at one platform for one junior developer role, 24 percent of the 23,000 candidates invited to the AI interview completed it, and within that pipeline not completing meant not advancing ⁶.

That 24 percent blends genuine refusal with a dead link, a missed deadline, and a job found elsewhere, so it is not a measure of how many people object on principle, and one platform and one role is not the market. What it shows is that in that pipeline non-completion functioned as an exit, which is the shape to expect wherever an employer offers no separate path. At a small employer with no alternative process at all, declining and withdrawing are often functionally the same decision, see whether the async video round is even worth keeping when every answer is scripted for the version aimed at the employer weighing whether to keep running it that way.

Name the Accommodation You Need, Not Just a Refusal

If your reason for declining is a disability, an accommodation request rests on different legal ground than a general refusal. The ADA makes it discrimination to fail to make reasonable accommodations for the known limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability who is an applicant, not only an employee, unless the employer shows undue hardship, and it reaches employers with 15 or more employees ⁷.

Name the accommodation, whether a different format, more time, or a human reviewer. Say that you need it because of a disability or a medical condition, and route it through the accommodations contact rather than the general recruiter inbox if one is listed. You never have to name a diagnosis, though an employer can ask for documentation where the need is not obvious.

Employers are told the same rule reaches an AI-based assessment like any other test: whether ADA accommodations apply to an AI-based assessment, and what to offer names the same standard, changing the format rather than the skill being measured, from the side that has to answer the request. Reading it tells you what a reasonable answer is supposed to look like before you send yours.

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