O
Catalyst | On Topic
M
ost of us would probably consider
online retail giant Amazon to
be at the cutting edge of tech
innovation. However, last year the
company scrapped a new artificial
intelligence (AI) recruitment engine that blatantly
discriminated against women.
It turned out that its recruitment tool had been
using an algorithm which automatically screened out
female CVs for software developer jobs. Its system
(since redesigned to be gender neutral) was simply
reinforcing an historical bias towards hiring men that
had been in place in the company for years.
Yet despite such disheartening anecdotes, many
organisations are embracing the potential of AI for
aspects of hiring. According to estimates from start-
up investment fund, The HR Tech Partnership, the
recruitment technology market spawned around
8,000 start-ups last year.
AI companies dominate this market, bringing to
market countless solutions that automate parts of
the hiring process that previously took up valuable
time and energy.
Many HR departments are beginning to dip
their feet into this market through CV-screening
applications, but are increasingly investigating
other features such as chatbots that can interact with
candidates and automated video interviewing where
an algorithm can pinpoint language or expressions
common to successful performers [see box, p36].
With hiring managers facing acute skills
shortages, it is no surprise there’s an appetite to
automate or refine aspects of this process. According
to PwC’s latest CEO survey, the availability of skills
was their third-biggest concern, with 55% claiming
they were unable to innovate effectively without
the right staff.
Some companies simply struggle to handle the
volume of applications: in 2017, McDonald’s said
it would hire 250,000 employees over its summer
season in order to deal with demand. It’s estimated
that Google is inundated with over two million
applications every year.
Robot-pleasing
Automation lends itself well to sending out
confirmation emails to hundreds of candidates or
parsing keywords in large volumes of CVs. However,
many users are beginning to see AI’s limitations here,
particularly in stages of the hiring process where
multiple factors come into play.
Issue 3 - 2019
35