When recruitment processes of companies are considered, one could say that humans- especially recruiters- are playing a significant role. Evaluating CVs, selecting candidates, conducting job interviews, and hiring applicants are tasks that used to be executed by humans. However, times have changed and the digitalization trend has also reached the HR departments of companies. New techniques such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are becoming increasingly popular and are changing the recruitment game in the HR world.
An interesting aspect to consider is the way AI is developed for recruitment processes. In short, intelligent programs are monitoring what aspects are desired or undesired based on datasets. By adopting this data and by recognizing patterns, algorithms are designed and outputs are created. For this entire process, AI relies on multiple fields including: ‘computer science, mathematics, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, and artificial psychology’ among others (Wilfred, 2018, p.16). Regarding the implementation of AI, this can be used in many different recruitment tools, including; automated candidate sourcing, facial expression analysis, talent acquisition, and video job interviews, and chatbots (Neelie, 2019)
Considering the reasons for companies to incorporate AI within their recruitment processes, several advantages can be pointed out. First, AI is considered to be an objective selection tool that can screen large groups of candidates. This means that after certain criteria are set, AI can generate valuable outputs on a pool of applicants based on these criteria. As a result, the quality of hiring and effectiveness may be improved (Windley, 2021). Furthermore, by using an algorithm, much time can be saved by recruitment teams as certain programs can generate outputs in a short amount of time. This will positively affect the recruitment processes since time is considered a very valuable component by most businesses (Windley, 2021).
An important condition for the successful use of AI is a useful and trustworthy dataset. If this is not the case, chances are high that companies obtain undesired results. For instance, in 2015, Amazon noticed that their newly developed AI recruiting tool was discriminating against women. This was due to the fact that the dataset, that had been used by the machine learning algorithm, included much data from previous years. As many of the CVs in this dataset were from men, the system was biased which consequently lowered the rating of female resumes during the screening process (Dastin, 2018).
Although AI in recruitment may also have negative consequences, as described in the previous section, the benefits are high. Therefore, the combination of HR and Artificial intelligence is believed to be powerful in the future.
Sources:
Wilfred, D., 2018. AI in Recruitment. NHRD Network Journal, 11(2), pp.15-18.
Windley, D., (2021). Is AI The Answer To Recruiting Effectiveness?. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2021/06/16/is-ai-the-answer-to-recruiting-effectiveness/?sh=4d3be9ef2d7c.
Dastin, J., (2028). Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women. [online] reuters.com. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight-idUSKCN1MK08G.
Neelie. (2021). 9 Intriguing Uses of AI in Recruitment in 2019 – Harver. [online] Available at: https://harver.com/blog/ai-in-recruitment-2019/.
Interesting piece!
AI seems to be a tool that can be used for pretty much everything, and will be revolutionising the world. AI in recruitment is a hot topic, and I have seen many students so far explore this topic in their thesis. I think there are definite advantages of using AI in this process, as you highlight in your article. However, as you also mention, it is important that the AI is properly trained and free of biases. In fact, this seems to be one of the largest challenges with AI, and biases seem to persist consistently. All in all, AI is still in relatively early development, and as with all revolutionary technologies it will take time to work optimally. However, when it finally works optimally it can change the world.
Interesting to read how AI is complementing as well as enriching the recruitment process of HR departments within companies. What is your opinion on AI taking over functions within these departments? Or do you indeed see it as a complementary function that AI fulfils? Also, interesting how you touched upon the negative consequences of AI concerning discrimination. Since this is a highly sensitive subject nowadays and therefore important to take into account: did you read anything about the percentages in which discrimination occurs when AI is used for recruitment compared to humans fulfilling the recruitment process tasks? To conclude, I agree that AI does help the recruitment process significantly to recruit high potentials that could add value to a company without preconception.
Hi Marielle,
Thanks for reading my article and for your comment. In my opinion, AI is a valuable complementing technology which could definitely help HR departments to improve their performance. This can also confirmed by two main Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) including time and quality of hires. Using AI driven recruitment tools, the aforementioned KPI’s show better results. Regarding your second question, this is complicated to measure since discrimination may not always be reported or cannot always be detected. Therefore, verified percentages are hard to provide.