Why teams move to AI-assisted interviews
Banning AI in an interview tests a way of working the job no longer uses, and is hard to enforce. Allowing it without recording its use makes the result impossible to interpret. An AI-assisted interview makes the assistant part of the test and records what happens.
Choosing how much AI to allow
| Guarded | Unguarded | |
|---|---|---|
| Assistant | A limited helper in the room | A full assistant: completions, chat and an agent |
| Tests | Fundamentals | How the candidate ships with AI |
| Good for | Roles where core skills must be shown unaided | Roles where building with AI is the daily job |
| Enforced by | The server | The server |
What to measure
- Does the solution work, by tests run on the server?
- Did they read before asking? (time to first prompt)
- Were requests precise? (prompt quality)
- Did they check what they accepted? (verification, over-reliance flags)
- What happened when the assistant was wrong? (recovery)
How SynergicHire runs AI-assisted coding rounds
Rounds open a React (Vite), Next.js, React Native (Expo) or Node.js project with Monaco, a terminal, tests and a live preview, and a Plan, Build and Review flow. The assistant offers completions, file-aware chat and an agent. Code is tinted as typed by the candidate, accepted from the AI, or verified by tests. Text pasted into the chat claiming to be a system override unlocks nothing.
Questions
Which AI models does the assistant use?
Current frontier models from Anthropic (Claude) by default, with OpenAI models available for a workspace. The candidate can switch between the workspace's models during the round.
Is it fair to candidates who rarely use AI?
Yes, when fundamentals and AI fluency are scored separately and never averaged, as in SynergicHire.
Can candidates use their own AI tools?
The round's assistant is the one recorded and attributed. Guarded or unguarded mode decides how much it can do.