Recruitment Bias – Cambridge University Finds AI Highly Flawed

Artificial Intelligence tools found to be errant at best

In a development that will surprise no individual who has spent an appreciable amount of time operating in the recruitment realm, it turns out that the barrage of AI systems and operations being developed and used to try and eliminate bias from the recruitment process may be doing more harm than good. A number of companies and internal resources departments have begun to utilize artificial intelligence offerings to automate a variety of steps in the hiring chain ranging from resume screening to job offer construction. Gamification at often absurd levels, built in biases due to model training, and a host of truly dubious at best factors being used have raised numerous questions regarding ethical considerations and general efficacy.

• Qualitative characteristics. Quite often the most important part of the recruitment process is determining who will be a potentially strong fit based on a host of factors that cannot be directly quantified. To have a team of programmers, developers, and data analysts make this type of determination rather than a seasoned recruitment professional who has honed the ability to account for an array of factors – many of which simply cannot be properly calculated and defined by AI – is exceptionally misguided. The now classic case of Amazon’s screening system in use through 2019 that was excluding a large group of applicants due to skewed logic and unfixable filtering parameters is a perfect example.

Is there a place for AI in the hiring process? Those who are building the systems would certainly say yes and they would have very good monetary reasons for doing so given the number of groups looking to supplement processes with the seemingly next great thing. The primary argument tends to revolve around increased efficiency and speed. This certainly might be attractive to many, particularly those who have a high number of positions to fill, are seeking to pare certain costs, and have historically transactional organizations that require a large number of operations to complete in order to make a hire. However, for most companies who want to hire the best performers who are also an exceptional match for their particular culture there simply will never be a better resource than a recruitment pro.