WSJ: Companies Bring Back In-Person Technical Interviews to Combat AI Assistance

[nihalsari]

Technical interviews—often involving real-time coding—have become one of the biggest challenges for employers, The Wall Street Journal reports. During online interviews, candidates are increasingly using AI tools to provide them with answers “behind the scenes.”

This trend is pushing companies to return to traditional hiring methods. Cisco and McKinsey have started holding more in-person meetings with candidates. Google has also reinstated on-site interviews for certain roles, primarily to verify programming skills. “We make sure to have at least one round of in-person meetings,” CEO Sundar Pichai told Lex Fridman in an interview.

Mike Kyle, Director of Technology Recruiting at Coda Search/Staffing, told WSJ that the share of companies requiring in-person interviews rose from 5% in 2024 to 30% in 2025. “Everything has come full circle,” he summarized.

[jacson4]

This shift back to in-person interviews feels like the pendulum swinging in response to how quickly AI tools have entered the hiring landscape. For years, companies streamlined technical hiring to be remote and convenient, but the unintended consequence is that verifying genuine skills has become harder than ever. AI can now generate flawless code in seconds, making it nearly impossible for interviewers to gauge a candidate’s problem-solving ability in real time. While I understand the frustration from employers, I also think this could hurt accessibility — remote interviews opened doors for global talent, and we risk losing that advantage. Maybe the solution is hybrid: keep the flexibility of remote stages but include one in-person or proctored technical session to validate skills without completely reversing the progress we’ve made in remote hiring.

[Nahid10]

The rise of “AI-assisted” interviews raises some tough questions about where to draw the ethical line. If a candidate uses AI for brainstorming or syntax help during an interview, is that cheating — or just using modern tools the same way developers already do on the job? The problem is that interviews are designed to test individual thinking under pressure, and when AI becomes a silent co-pilot, it breaks that measurement. This explains why companies like Google, Cisco, and McKinsey are pushing for at least one face-to-face, fully controlled environment to ensure the person can truly perform without external crutches. Still, this feels like just the beginning — as AI gets more integrated into daily workflows, the definition of “authentic skill” in hiring will need to evolve.