AI-Powered Behavioural Assessment for Government Hiring

The Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) is piloting an AI-powered system called Knockri to help assess job candidates during the hiring process. The system administers structured behavioural interviews automatically, asking candidates a set of questions and analyzing their audio responses to measure job-relevant behavioural attributes. This tool was introduced to reduce the time and cost of in-person interviews, allow all candidates an equal opportunity to be assessed, and minimize human rater bias in the evaluation process.

When a candidate responds to interview questions, their audio is transcribed into text and analyzed by a natural language processing model. The system generates scores indicating how well a candidate demonstrated specific behaviours linked to job performance. These scores are provided to HR advisors as one of several inputs in the hiring process — the final decision to hire or not hire always remains with a human HR advisor or hiring manager. Candidates are not obligated to use the automated system and may request an in-person alternative assessment at any time.

This pilot covers approximately 350 Administrative Services (AS-01/AS-02) and Executive (EX-01) candidates. Candidates are informed before participation about how their data will be used, and they have the right to request deletion of their personal information after the assessment. TBS is committed to transparency and fairness: performance testing will examine whether the system performs equally across demographic groups, and an audit trail is maintained for all assessment results.