A voice-based AI solution called Praktika.AI has identified some of the top mistakes made by non-native English speakers during job interviews. The Delaware startup lets language learners interact with robot characters in real-life situations. Currently, the service is available in Brazil, with plans to expand into LatAm.

Praktika.AI's conclusions are based on a comprehensive analysis of over 100,000 interactions between non-native job seekers and realistic AI robots in a language immersion environment.

According to the startup's findings:

73% of users disclose too much personal information when answering formulaic interview prompts like 'Tell us about yourself.' Many non-native English speakers understand the question broadly, so they tell the interviewer about their native country, their pets, or their hobbies.

60% of users give one-word answers to HR questions. For example, to questions like: 'Do you have experience of managing projects?' or 'Do you know something about our company?', many non-native speakers simply respond yes or no without elaborating, providing details, or giving relevant background information.

54% of users mix multiple English tenses, for example, when describing a project or prior work experience, leaving the interviewer confused about the timeline, achievements, and process.

64% of users respond with overly long run-on sentences, mixing several topics and ideas. For example, an applicant might say, 'I was doing this [...] and I've been thinking that [...] and I was going to...', never getting to the point. As a result, the interviewer might have trouble following their train of thought or figuring out which details are important.

71% of users are not accustomed to the culture of small talk, which is normally part of the U.S. job interview. They do not engage the interviewers on their own, and are generally too embarrassed to keep up the conversation if others initiate, which leaves many Americans with an impression of social awkwardness.

66% of users mispronounce basic words related to work and career. The most common errors are: 'carrier" while referring to "career," or "coustomer" for 'customer.'

88% of users are simply nervous about their English, which translates into performance anxiety where they struggle to speak. They overthink, pause too long between replies, even rewrite their responses several times. Sometimes, due to anxiety, they answer with very short sentences to avoid grammatical mistakes or mispronunciations.

'Some recruiters in Brazil ask similar questions twice: people are simply too nervous to communicate in English, and perform better after a 'warmup',' said Adam Turaev, Praktika.AI co-founder. 'Using our app, non-native speakers can prepare for their job interviews in advance. We conducted the research to help our students learn better and find new opportunities worldwide. We are constantly searching for ways to improve our technology and learning experience, because most language mistakes can be easily corrected by practicing with AI robots.'

Praktika.AI is an AI in education Shark Tank winner of the EdTech Week competition that took place in New York on September 20-22.

About Praktika.AI

Praktika.AI is an AI-based learning platform, launched in 2022 to help non-native English speakers improve their hiring prospects with U.S. and international companies. Currently, the solution allows non-native speakers to 'rehearse' real-life situations, such as job interviews. Praktika.AI is available in Brazil and aims to enter other emerging markets in LatAm and the Middle East over the next few years.