Interviewed by AI After 15 Years

Sometimes I look at my two boys and wonder how they grew up so quickly. I can still remember the days when our schedules revolved around school, swimming lessons, music lessons, and all the little things that came with raising two children so close in age. Those days were busy, but I enjoyed being part of their everyday lives, and looking back, I am glad I chose to work from home so I could be there for them.

Now they are teenagers, in their second and third years of secondary school, and life at home has changed quite a bit. We still spend time together after school, often sitting in our shared workspace while they study and I do my own work. The difference is that they no longer need me to go through their schoolbooks from beginning to end. Most of the time, they manage perfectly well on their own and only ask for help when something is difficult.

I have always enjoyed working from home, especially because it gave me the freedom to arrange my days around my family while continuing to build my own projects and learn new things. Over the years, I have discovered skills I never imagined I would have, and there is still so much I want to learn. With the boys becoming more independent, I started thinking about trying something different, perhaps exploring opportunities beyond the work I had already been doing.

That curiosity eventually led me to apply for a position on an online talent platform, and before I knew it, I was preparing for my first formal job interview in fifteen years. I had spent all those years writing, managing my website, and communicating with people through emails, but answering interview questions out loud was something I hadn’t done in a very long time.

I was nervous, especially when I realised that my interviewer wasn’t even a real person. It was an AI interviewer, and I had no idea what to expect.

It Started With Two Babies

My two children were born just one year and three weeks apart, so you can probably imagine how busy our home was when they were little. Between changing diapers, sleepless nights, and looking after two young boys who needed so much attention, there was hardly a quiet moment in the house.

When I decided to work from home, I knew I wanted more than simply being around while my children were growing up. I wanted the freedom to attend their school events and sit in the front row, to welcome them home in the afternoon, and to hear all their little stories while we enjoyed a snack together. I also wanted to have enough time to help them with their schoolwork without constantly worrying about getting back to an office or rushing to finish everything before the evening.

Of course, working from home with two small children was not always easy, but I enjoyed having the flexibility to organise my days around our family life. It also gave me the opportunity to explore things I might never have tried otherwise, and what began with learning how to manage a simple WordPress website gradually turned into something much bigger.

Over the years, I built Twinkle So Bright, started a personal shopper service, and eventually began offering WordPress services. I also created a YouTube channel for my children, which became another little project alongside everything else I was doing.

My Experience Working From Home

When I first started working with WordPress, I only knew how to install a theme and make changes using the options already available. As I became more comfortable, I began teaching myself how to use Elementor, Divi, Block Editor, Ashe, Twenty Twenty Five etc, experimenting with different layouts and learning how to manage more of the website on my own. Later, I became involved in paid partnerships, product reviews, and collaborations with brands, which brought new things to learn about content creation and running a website as a business.

Most of what I know today came from figuring things out as I went along. Sometimes I spent hours trying to solve a problem on my website, only to discover that the solution was much simpler than I had expected. Other times, learning one new feature made me curious about what else I could do, and I would find myself experimenting with something completely different.

I never really planned to learn so many things when I first decided to work from home, but I enjoyed seeing what I could create and how much I could manage independently. Those years gave me much more than the flexibility I originally wanted for my family. They also gave me practical experience, new skills, and the confidence to keep trying things I had never done before.

And now my children are becoming more independent, I have more room in my day to explore opportunities beyond my own projects. I still want to work from home, and I have no intention of leaving behind what I have built, but I am curious about how the skills I have developed might be useful in other kinds of work.

One thing I had not thought much about, however, was how different it would feel to go through a formal recruitment process again, particularly when it involved speaking English rather than writing it.

I am Indonesian and have lived in the Netherlands for many years, where Dutch has become part of my everyday life. I passed my Dutch exam and continued studying the language up to B2 level, although I still speak with an Indonesian accent. Since I spend much of my time working from home, I also have fewer opportunities for extended conversations in other languanges than I might have in a workplace where everyone speaks it throughout the day.

English has been equally important in my work, especially when writing articles, communicating with brands, and handling business emails. I am comfortable expressing myself in writing because I can take my time to organise my thoughts, but speaking spontaneously is different, particularly when someone is asking questions and expecting an immediate answer.

That was something I had not needed to think about for years, until I decided to apply for a new position and found myself facing an interview again.

My First Job Interview in 15 Years, With AI

With artificial intelligence becoming part of so many things we do today, I started wondering whether there might be opportunities for me to explore something different while continuing to work from home. I had been looking into remote jobs and came across several platforms offering projects related to AI training, content evaluation, and data annotation, some of which seemed interesting enough for me to consider applying.

One of the positions that caught my attention was an Educator/Assessor Writer role. I decided to apply, although I wasn’t entirely sure what the recruitment process would involve, especially since it had been fifteen years since I last attended a formal job interview.

What I hadn’t expected was that my interviewer would be an AI rather than a person. The interview took place live, with screen sharing, and I had to answer the questions verbally in English, which was quite different from the written communication I had become so accustomed to through my work.

I could understand the questions, and in many cases I knew what I wanted to say, but explaining my thoughts clearly while speaking was another matter. When I write, I have time to consider my words, rearrange a sentence, or check whether I have explained something properly before sending it. During a live interview, I don’t have that luxury, and after so many years without interview practice, I found myself having to think and speak at the same time.

I went through the interview as best I could, and three days later, I received an email informing me that I hadn’t passed the assessment. I had hoped for a different result, of course, but I was also curious about what I could have done better, so I requested feedback rather than simply moving on to another application.

Practising My Spoken English Again

After reading through the assessment, I began thinking about how I could practise speaking English more regularly, particularly in situations where I needed to answer questions without preparing everything beforehand. I decided to use AI to help me with that too, asking it to prepare interview questions and speaking exercises that I could practise at home.

I also started recording myself while answering the questions, then listening to the recordings afterwards to hear how I sounded and whether my explanations made sense. It felt a little strange listening to my own voice at first, but it gave me a chance to notice things that I might not have realised while speaking.

I wasn’t trying to change my accent or speak like a native English speaker. What mattered more to me was being able to express what I already knew without getting stuck trying to find the right words, particularly when answering an unexpected question.

About a week later, I applied for another position, this time as a Video Data Annotation Specialist, and went through another AI interview. Having experienced the process once before and spent some time practising, I felt more prepared, although I still had no idea what the result would be.

This time, I passed the interview certification assessment. I later tried another opportunity as an Indonesian Bilingual Expert and passed that assessment as well.

Passing an interview assessment is not the same as receiving a job offer, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee that paid work will follow. Still, after my first unsuccessful attempt, I was pleased that I had decided to practise and try again rather than letting one result stop me from exploring other opportunities. For me, this is a way of opening the door to new possibilities, particularly remote jobs that fit both the skills I have developed over the years and the time I have available. I am not looking to give up the work I already enjoy, but I would like to see whether I can use my experience in a different setting while continuing to have the flexibility that has always been important to my family.

The experience also made me realise that I didn’t have to limit myself to the kind of work I had been doing for years. I could continue running my own projects while looking into other remote opportunities, learning what different companies were looking for, and seeing where my existing skills might fit.

Why I Am Telling You This

I am now in my late forties, and when I look at some of my friends who are around the same age, I realise that we have all taken different paths over the years. Some continued working in offices, while others chose to stay home with their children or took a break from their careers because family life needed more of their time. Now that our children are getting older, conversations sometimes turn to what we might like to do next, especially when we finally have a little more freedom to arrange our days.

I don’t know whether I would enjoy going back to a regular office job after all these years, and to be fair, I haven’t been looking for one. I like the way I work now, being able to manage my own time, take care of things at home, and continue with the projects I have built over the years. What interests me is the possibility of adding something new, perhaps a part-time remote job or a project that makes use of the skills I already have, without having to change the family routine that has worked so well for us.

That is also why I started my Remote Jobs page. As I began looking for opportunities myself, I came across different companies and platforms offering remote work, including AI-related projects, language-based tasks, and other online positions. Rather than keeping all those links scattered across my browser, I thought it would be useful to collect them in one place, both for myself and for anyone else who might be looking for something similar.

Remote Job Opportunities for You and Me

I know that finding a suitable remote job isn’t necessarily easy, particularly when you have been away from formal recruitment for a long time. Some opportunities sound interesting until you read the requirements, while others may not offer the hours, flexibility, or type of work you are looking for. I am still figuring out which ones might be a good fit for me, and I expect there will be more applications, interviews, and probably a few disappointments along the way.

But I don’t feel that I need to rush into anything. My children are growing up, I have work that I enjoy, and for the first time in quite a while, I have a little more space to consider opportunities that I might not have had time for before. I would like to make use of that time, earn something from work that suits my experience, and perhaps discover another side of working from home that I haven’t explored yet.

I wanted to share this story because I know I am probably not the only mother in her forties wondering what she might like to do now that her children are becoming more independent. Our circumstances may be different, and what works for me might not work for someone else, but perhaps you are also browsing job listings, thinking about learning something new, or simply curious about what is available these days.

For now, I will continue working on my own projects while exploring remote opportunities whenever I find something that interests me. If you are doing something similar, you can have a look at my Remote Jobs page, where I share platforms and job opportunities I come across along the way.

And who knows, perhaps one day I will have another story to tell about where all of this eventually leads.

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Home » I Worked From Home While Raising My Kids. After 15 Years, I Faced a Job Interview Again

I Worked From Home While Raising My Kids. After 15 Years, I Faced a Job Interview Again