Robotic recruitment: recruiting with AI technologies

February 2024  |  FEATURE | LABOUR & EMPLOYMENT

Financier Worldwide Magazine

February 2024 Issue

Ask today’s generation of jobseekers their views on the hiring process and the response may well be a chorus of criticism – a general dissatisfaction with recruitment processes and their oftentimes ineffectiveness and inconsistency.

The blame for such variability, in many cases, is laid at the door of recruiters who, tasked with sifting through a mountain of CVs, fail to spot pertinent qualifications and experience, thereby missing a candidate’s suitability for the job in question.

Hoping to consign such methods to history, organisations are increasingly utilising technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) in the tests and systems they use to select their employees. Many believe this recruiting phenomenon will deliver greater fairness in how the selection process is conducted.

“There is a lot of buzz around technology and AI in recruitment these days,” states the Harver report ‘Benefits of Recruitment Tech & AI: telling both sides of the story’. “With the ever-increasing complexity of recruitment channels, roles and lines of communication in mind, implementing AI is slowly turning into a necessity instead of a choice. Especially if an organisation wants to have a competitive advantage.”

According to the report, organisations are using AI to make their sourcing more efficient, to keep track of candidates, to interview candidates and to onboard new employees. Specifically, 39 percent of global organisations use data to predict candidate success, while 60 percent are planning on investing in AI-powered recruitment software.

For recruiters, notes the report, AI can complement their work, freeing them to focus on the more important elements of recruitment which can sometimes become neglected, such as candidate communication and relationship management. And for candidates, AI can make the application process easier, more engaging, structured and, in the end, a more satisfying experience.

Pros and cons

While AI-based algorithms undoubtedly provide recruiters with numerous advantages when vetting potential candidates, at the same time their use also raises issues around fairness and merit.

As outlined in the Harver report, AI can be used in numerous ways to improve quality of hire throughout different stages of the recruitment process. The first is sourcing. Instead of the casual ‘wide net’ approach, AI can greatly increase the number of qualified candidates in the pipeline. Second is screening. AI can be used to screen an existing talent database, scanning a talent pool for potential candidates that would fit the new position. And third: assessment. By leveraging AI preemployment assessment software, organisations hire based on an applicant’s actual skills instead of just a resume.

“AI can dramatically improve communication and transparency for candidates in the recruiting process,” concurs Matt Alder, host of the Recruiting Future Podcast. “It offers recruiters significant benefits by automating repetitive tasks and facilitating a more data-driven approach to recruiting.”

However, as well as these advantages, there are potential downsides to relying too heavily on AI in the recruitment process. “The main concerns about AI also have to do with bias,” asserts Mr Alder. “Specifically, a fear that AI may be built with bias embedded or become biased over time.”

A good example of bias is when Amazon was forced to scrap its experimental recruiting tool which used AI to give job candidates scores ranging from one to five stars but was found to show bias against women. Evidently, Amazon’s computer models were trained to vet applicants by observing patterns in resumes submitted to the company over a 10-year period, most of which came from men, a reflection of male dominance across the technology industry.

But regulation is on the way. “Much pending and recently implemented legislation around AI hiring is about candidate selection and assessment,” affirms Mr Alder. “Notable regulation in this area includes the new law in New York state that prohibits AI use in hiring decisions unless the AI has been audited for bias, President Biden’s recent executive order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, and the pending European Union AI Act.”

Direction of travel

While those recruiting staff using AI will always face detractors to some extent, the direction of travel suggests organisations will continue to turn to advanced technologies to streamline the overall recruitment process. This view is endorsed by the Harver report, which states that 56 percent of recruiters around the world believe interviewing innovations are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important to the future of hiring.

“AI is a hugely disruptive force in the recruitment space and will have a significant impact over the next few years,” foresees Mr Alder. “And while uptake is currently slow, most existing vendors are now baking generative AI into their platforms, which will dramatically accelerate adoption in 2024.

“That said, the precise implications for the recruiting process and the role of recruiters is as yet unknown,” he concludes. “But there is an increasingly popular school of thought that suggests that this may be the end of recruiters as we have known them.”

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Fraser Tennant