How SK AX's AI Interviewer Probes Your Answers, and What 1,800 Applicants Faced

SK AX announced on October 29 that it had launched G-Fit Studio, an AI hiring assessment that measured the skills of about 1,800 applicants in just six hours (translated) during the selection of the fourth cohort for SKALA (translated), its hiring-linked AI training program. The tool has applicants structure a problem while talking with an AI agent (translated), then sit an in-depth interview led by the AI. For Metaintro readers preparing for an AI-run interview, this guide explains each stage, who the applicants in the six-hour test were, and what rules in New York City and the EU say about tools like this.

What Did SK AX Announce on October 29?

G-Fit Studio is a solution that comprehensively analyses applicants' problem-solving ability, communication skills and AI proficiency through AI simulations based on real work (translated). SK AX, led by president Kim Wan-jong, designed it to support the judgment of HR staff (translated).

The launch comes ahead of the large-scale corporate hiring season (translated).

The problem SK AX wants to solve is depth. Many tests and interviews take place during hiring, but the limits of time and operational burden make it hard to understand an applicant's problem-solving ability in depth (translated). With generative AI spreading across work, an applicant's ability to use AI is becoming one of the important evaluation requirements (translated).

The launch is also a business move. SK AX is expanding into the corporate HR market (translated) on the back of AI hiring, pitching the tool for both selecting new hires and assessing companies' existing employees.

How Does the Business Problem-Solving Stage Work?

The assessment runs in two stages, business problem solving and strategic communication (translated). In the first stage, applicants set up a hypothesis to resolve the problem presented, structure the problem while talking with an AI agent, and then derive an action plan (translated).

The key detail for candidates is what gets recorded. The system logs what questions applicants asked the AI and how they judged and used the information presented to solve the problem (translated) as behavioural data. That record is used by HR staff to judge the applicant's capabilities (translated).

In other words, the questions you put to the AI are part of the test. SK AX designed the stage so that the way an applicant uses AI to solve a real problem is reflected in the evaluation (translated), as generative AI skills emerge as a factor in productivity at work.

What Happens in the 30-Minute AI Interview?

In the second stage, an in-depth interview is held on the applicant's personal statement and the solution they proposed in the business problem-solving stage (translated). The AI takes on virtual roles such as an HR manager or a line-department manager and exchanges questions and answers with the applicant for 30 minutes (translated).

Short answers do not end the conversation. When an applicant gives a fragmentary answer, the AI asks follow-up questions such as why they made that judgment and what the basis is for saying it is better than other alternatives (translated). It can also test how you handle conflict, by asking how you would persuade another department if it opposed you (translated).

The AI plays an assisting role that helps HR staff judge the applicant's problem-solving and communication skills (translated). The interview is designed to help gauge logical thinking and communication ability (translated) through questions about why you reached a judgment and how you would handle a clash of views with another team.

Speed comes from running many interviews at once. Because the AI interviews many applicants at the same time (translated), time and operational burden fall sharply compared with the old way of evaluating large numbers of applicants one by one (translated).

In the AI era, corporate competitiveness depends on how many people companies can secure and develop who are capable of using AI to deliver tangible business results, SK AX HRX initiative head Kim Min-hwan said (translated), according to the SK AX newsroom release.

Who Were the Applicants Behind the Six-Hour Figure?

They were applying for trainee places in the fourth cohort of SKALA (translated), SK AX's AI talent development program linked to recruitment. During that selection, the AI interviewed many applicants at the same time and supplied evaluation information (translated).

SKALA stands for SK AI Leader Academy. It is a hiring-linked practical training course that SK AX started in 2024 (translated) for young job seekers, run as an offline, full-day program for about five months.

Because it is hiring-linked, SKALA selects trainees through a process similar to a new-graduate recruitment round (translated). Applications closed on May 13 (translated), the SKCT (online, in-depth test only) and the competency interview were both scheduled for late May, and results were due in June. Applicants went through document screening, the SKCT and an AI competency interview (translated).

Eligibility was broad. Graduates or expected graduates of Korean or overseas universities or graduate schools who can join a company after the training could apply regardless of major (translated). SKALA is open to young Koreans aged 19 to 34 (translated). Further requirements applied. The course is 100% offline, so applicants must be able to attend full time for the whole training period, with no semester or credits to complete and no job, school or other bootcamp alongside it (translated). They also needed no disqualifying reason for overseas travel (for those liable for military service, service completed or exempted) (translated), and Pangyo applicants needed eligibility to take the K-Digital Training course with a Naeil Baeum Card (translated).

What Does SKALA Pay Trainees, and Where Do Graduates Land?

The training is free. Every trainee gets full tuition support plus scholarships and training allowances of up to about 1.5 million won a month (about $1,120) (translated), along with project prizes and lunch.

Trainees get a monthly SK scholarship of 1,000,000 won (about $746) if they reach 90% attendance, and a training allowance of up to 500,000 won a month (about $373). Other benefits include a latest MacBook free for the training period, one-to-one job consulting, mentoring from current SK staff and preference in SK Group hiring (translated).

The fourth cohort runs from July 2026 to December 2026, on weekdays at campuses in Pangyo (Seongnam), Gwangju and Ulsan. Earlier cohorts were centred on the Seoul capital area, and the fourth cohort added Gwangju and Ulsan (translated).

Earlier cohorts give a sense of the payoff. By the time the fourth cohort was recruited, 194 trainees from the first and second cohorts had completed the course, and more than 80% of them had found jobs at major companies including SK Group (translated). Top trainees are offered job opportunities at SK AX and at SK Group affiliates, subsidiaries and partner companies (translated).

The fourth cohort trains in data analysis and AIOps, Cloud Native AI and generative AI service development (translated), with team projects planned on real business problems in semiconductors, energy and telecoms.

Can Other Employers Use G-Fit Studio, and in Which Languages?

Yes. Assessments can be designed to fit the roles and work characteristics of each company (translated), which SK AX pitches as an edge in securing work-ready talent.

Language support matters for global roles. The tool supports a range of languages such as English and Japanese (translated), so it can check the communication skills needed for real customer response and global work (translated).

Because the same tasks and evaluation criteria apply to all applicants (translated), the tool is pitched as fairer and more objective.

The tool is not only for hiring. Companies can build scenarios around business proposals, work reporting and customer response (translated), so companies can use it to diagnose and train existing staff. Companies can also keep checking each employee's strengths and areas to improve and set structured development plans (translated), while reducing the evaluation and coaching burden on training staff (translated).

How Does SK AX Say It Handles Fairness in AI Assessments?

SK AX has written about this for its own AI skills certification, a separate product. SK AX's AI Literacy and AI Bootcamp courses are recognised as generative AI usage level 2 and level 1 qualifications under the government's corporate qualification recognition scheme, and in September SK AX won the Minister of Employment and Labor's award (translated) for its operation of the scheme.

For those certifications, SK AX reflected the safety, reliability and transparency principles of the AI Basic Act that took effect in January (translated). It worked to minimise bias in writing test items and in evaluation, and had people review and manage the final results (translated).

G-Fit Studio is designed so that HR staff refer to the analysis results and make the judgment (translated). SK AX has not disclosed how the analysis is weighted or how many SKALA applicants moved on after the AI interview.

What Rules Cover Automated Hiring Tools in New York City?

Local Law 144 of 2021 prohibits employers and employment agencies from using an automated employment decision tool unless the tool has been subject to a bias audit within one year of the use of the tool, information about the bias audit is publicly available, and certain notices have been provided to employees or job candidates. The law applies only to employers and employment agencies that use such a tool “in the city”. That means the job location is an office in NYC, at least part time, or the job is fully remote but the location associated with it is an office in NYC, or the location of the employment agency using the AEDT is NYC. If the employment agency is outside NYC, the law still applies when one of the first two conditions is true.

A bias audit is an impartial evaluation by an independent auditor, the same kind of check examined in Hidden Bias in AI Hiring Audits and What Job Seekers Should Know.

Employers and employment agencies must notify employees and job candidates who are residents of New York City that they are using an AEDT and the job qualifications or characteristics the AEDT will assess. They must also include in the notice instructions to request a reasonable accommodation under other laws, provide the notice 10 business days before using an AEDT, and provide the notice in a job posting or by mail or email, with alternatives for applicants and promotion candidates on the same page.

The law took effect on January 1, 2023, with enforcement from July 5, 2023. To complain about a violation of the law, you can contact 311 or visit the DCWP website, run by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.

Claims of discrimination involving AEDT use should go to the NYC Commission on Human Rights (Commission) which enforces the NYC Human Rights Law, according to the DCWP frequently asked questions page.

How Does the EU AI Act Treat AI That Evaluates Candidates?

Annex III of the EU AI Act classes as high-risk AI systems intended to be used for the recruitment or selection of natural persons, in particular to place targeted job advertisements, to analyse and filter job applications, and to evaluate candidates.

For people such as candidates, Article 26 of the EU AI Act says that without prejudice to Article 50 of this Regulation, deployers of high-risk AI systems referred to in Annex III that make decisions or assist in making decisions related to natural persons shall inform the natural persons that they are subject to the use of the high-risk AI system. A separate paragraph of the same article covers what employers must tell their own workers.

Timing is still some way off. Article 26 comes into force on 2 December 2027 for high-risk systems under Annex III, according to Article 113(c). Separately, Article 86 sets out a right to explanation of individual decision-making, and its conditions and exceptions are on that page.

What This Means for Job Seekers, and How Should You Prepare for an AI-Run Interview?

The bigger shift here is what the test measures. G-Fit Studio does not only check what you know. It logs what questions applicants asked the AI (translated) and records how you use the answers, so using AI well is part of this interview itself. That echoes other recent changes to interviews, such as an Anthropic hiring manager dropping the coding interview.

Here is how to prepare, built on what the tool records.

• Practise the problem stage out loud. The first stage asks you to set up a hypothesis, structure the problem while talking with an AI agent, and then derive an action plan (translated). Practise with a case question and state a hypothesis first, then structure the problem and end with an action plan, the order the stage follows.
• Treat every question you type as evidence. Because the system records how applicants judged and used the information presented (translated), check the AI's answers, say what you are keeping or rejecting, and why.
• Expect the why question. Prepare a reason for each choice and one alternative you rejected, since the AI asks follow-up questions such as what the basis is for saying it is better than other alternatives (translated) when answers are fragmentary.
• Know your personal statement cold. The interview is held on the applicant's personal statement and the solution they proposed (translated) in the first stage, so go over every claim in your personal statement before the interview.
• Have a persuasion story ready. A sample question asks how you would persuade another department if it opposed you (translated), so prepare one real example of winning over a sceptical team.
• Use your rights where they exist. If you live in New York City and the job is based there, the required notice must tell you the job qualifications or characteristics the AEDT will assess and how to ask for an accommodation, so read it and use it.

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People Also Asked

Q: What is SK AX's G-Fit Studio?

A: It is an AI tool that uses AI simulations based on real work (translated) to analyse applicants' problem-solving, communication and AI skills, so HR staff can refer to the results when they make a judgment.

Q: How long is the G-Fit Studio AI interview?

A: The AI plays roles such as an HR manager or a line-department manager and exchanges questions and answers with the applicant for 30 minutes (translated), following up when answers are fragmentary.

Q: Do employers have to tell you when AI is assessing you?

A: In New York City, yes, where the law applies, employers and employment agencies must give notice to New York City residents 10 business days before using an AEDT. In the EU, deployers of Annex III high-risk systems that make or assist decisions about people shall inform the natural persons, with Article 26 in force from 2 December 2027.

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