Here's how we don't use AI:

No AI in the First Read: Every CV is reviewed by a real person on our Talent team. Beyond that initial read, we may use AI to help us organise and compare applications as we shortlist, but a human is always doing the assessing and a human is always making the decision.
No AI for Decision Making: AI doesn't compare notes or make decisions about who is the best fit for a role — that's always a human decision made by our hiring team.

Here's how we do use AI (transparently and with your consent):

Interview and Phone Screen Transcriptions: During your phone screen or interview, we may use AI to create a written transcription of our conversation. We'll always let you know this before we begin, and you are totally free to let us know if you'd rather we didn't.
Why we do this: This allows our talent partners and interviewers to focus on having a great conversation with you and maintain eye contact, rather than spending the whole time writing notes. It also ensures we capture all the important details so we don't miss anything that could help us get to know you better.
What happens after your interview: We will delete the transcriptions after we have closed the vacancy you were applying for.
Phone Conversation Recordings: While we generally don't record phone conversations, if we ever do, we'll always disclose this to you beforehand and ask for your consent.

Your Use of AI in the Application Process

We encourage you to use AI to help you prepare effectively for your application and interviews with Trade Me.

Preparation (Encouraged!)

Research: Use AI to quickly gather information about our company, values, products, and the team you're applying to.
Resume & Cover Letter Refinement: Use AI to help polish your language, check grammar, or suggest ways to articulate your experience more clearly. However, ensure the content accurately reflects your skills, experience, and style — authenticity is key. We also recommend letting another person read your CV and provide feedback.

Interview Practice: Use AI to generate common interview questions, practice your answers, or get feedback on your communication style.

Live Interviews (In-Person or Video)

We expect live interviews to be an authentic, unassisted conversation with our team. This means not using AI tools to generate real-time answers, prompts, or information during the actual interview. Our interviews are designed to assess your spontaneous problem-solving, interpersonal skills, and how you articulate your thoughts independently.

Take-Home Technical Tests (Tech Roles)

AI is now a core part of how we build software at Trade Me, and we expect it to be part of how you work too. When you take on a tech test for us, we expect you to use AI — the same way you would on the job.

What we're really assessing isn't whether you can write every line of code yourself; AI can do a lot of that for you, and quickly. What we want to see is how well you work with AI as the human in the loop:

Judgement: Can you assess what AI gives you for correctness, quality, and fit? Do you push back when it's wrong, refine when it's close, and recognise when it's off track?
Direction: How did you steer the AI? What prompts, context or constraints did you give it, and why? What trade-offs did you make along the way?
Understanding: You should be able to walk us through every part of your solution and explain the decisions behind it — what you accepted, what you changed, and what you'd do differently. If you can't explain it, it's not really your solution.
Craft: Good engineering judgement still matters — structure, separation of concerns, testing, and how the pieces fit together. We're looking for thoughtful, well-considered work, not just whatever AI produced first.

In the follow-up interview, we'll dig into your thinking: how you approached the problem, how you worked with AI to get there, and how you'd extend or evolve your solution. We love it when candidates reflect on where AI helped, where it didn't, and what they learned along the way.

If you have any questions about how we use AI or anything else in our recruitment process, please don't hesitate to ask your recruiter.

AI in Recruitment

How We Use AI in Your Trade Me Interview