Did you know How Using Artificial Intelligence Will Change the Way We Hire for Diversity (infographic)
It is no secret that the hiring process is being taken virtual. Several companies are using applicant tracking systems and other recruiting software to improve their hiring process, making it faster and more effective. One technology that has the potential to be extremely helpful to the hiring process is artificial intelligence. However, recruiting AI is not without its issues. The visual deep dive below explains the process in more detail, but let’s look at the pros and cons of recruiting AI.
Cons of Using Artificial Intelligence
Unfortunately, recruiting AI has the potential to develop bias similar to humans. If the AI is trained with data that reflects a human recruiter’s bias, the AI will learn the pattern and repeat it. This is exactly what happened in 2018 with Amazon’s recruiting AI. Their AI was trained off of ten years of their hiring data where the machine learned to identify males as more qualified than females. This hurts a company’s potential for success immensely as focusing on physical or personal factors like gender immediately minimizes the talent pool. It excludes candidates who could be extremely successful in the position for a reason that has nothing to do with their qualifications.
Additionally, several HR professionals do not believe they are prepared to begin using a recruiting AI. The technology is definitely new to most people and there will be a learning curve when it is first implemented. Because the AI learns by taking in data from the recruiters, more pressure is put on the recruiters to use the AI effectively so it doesn’t learn any bad patterns and behaviors like the one explained in the paragraph above. Initially, HR professionals and recruiters will have to work extra hard to ensure the AI runs smoothly.
Pros of Using Artificial Intelligence
Using a recruiting AI makes the hiring process so much faster. The technology can instantly list the top applicants to a job posting. This is something that takes human recruiters hours or days to do. Once people are used to how the software works, it will make the process much easier. Most recruiters and HR professionals think their current recruiting process needs improvement. A recruiting AI could be just the right tool to improve this.
Most of the cons to using recruiting AI can be solved by good programming. Programming the AI with unbiased data will help the technology to act in the desired way. With unbiased data, the AI won’t consider factors like a candidate’s gender, age, or race. It will take into account their skills and background as well as their interests. The machine should also be able to consider if the candidate would truly want to work for that company, if the person and the company are a good fit together.
Once the AI is programmed to be unbiased, it can do a much better job than human recruiters at eliminating unconscious discrimination from the recruiting process. This will help to add diversity to a company, which is extremely beneficial. Diversity adds greater creativity and innovation to a business. Diverse people contribute different ways of thinking, helping the business conquer problems in new ways. Diversity also leads to higher profitability. The most diverse companies have greater rates of financial success and long-term profitability.
Overall, if trained correctly, a recruiting AI can be very beneficial. It can make the process easier, faster, and more fair to diverse candidates. However, if it is programmed poorly, the cons certainly outweigh the pros. Hopefully with time, recruiters and HR professionals will be able to perfect the use of recruiting AI and reap the benefits of a quicker and more effective hiring process. Recruiting AI can increase a company’s diversity and profitability all while making hiring an easier process.
