Avoid Horizontal – A Dehumanized and Frustrating Experience My recent experience with Horizontal was extremely disappointing, and I feel compelled to warn others before they waste their time applying here. This company appears to have adopted new technology for the sake of innovation—but in the worst possible way. After submitting my personal information, I was contacted not by a recruiter, but by an AI bot. The bot proceeded to ask a long list of repetitive and irrelevant questions about my resume—questions that could easily have been understood from the document itself. The entire process felt like a robotic interrogation rather than a genuine effort to evaluate talent. What’s more frustrating is the clear lack of respect for the applicant’s time. I spent over 30 minutes completing tedious forms, only to have that information fed directly into an automated system. There was no meaningful human interaction, no real communication—just algorithms trying (and failing) to replicate a hiring process. It’s baffling that a company would consider this a smart application of AI. If you’re going to rely on bots, don’t expect candidates to keep playing along without any engagement from your side. Should we start sending our own bots to apply now? This approach shows a disturbing lack of empathy and professionalism. It feels like the HR team has offloaded their responsibilities entirely to automation, with no thought to the candidate experience. If you value your time and want to be treated like a real person rather than data for a machine to parse—avoid Horizontal at all costs.