13 The Future of Hiring

The Future of Hiring

The recruitment process has seen a massive transformation over the past few years. More and more organisations are turning to AI (artificial intelligence) technology to recruit employees. HireVue is an American digital recruitment company that uses AI to assess candidates. The technology uses automated video interviews that analyse your facial movements, word choice and speaking voice before ranking them against other applicants based on an automatically generated “employability” score.

How it Works The software is programmed and trained using data sets. These are records of information deemed necessary to find the most suitable person for a vacancy, such as qualifications, applicant characteristics, skills, experience etc. AI is trained to properly interpret data and learn from it to perform a task with accuracy.

Step one in the job application process you submit your CV. It then goes through an AI assessment where algorithms process its contents and scores it against pre-defined data sets.

Step two is an email invitation to an automated video interview. To complete the interview a device with a camera, such as your mobile phone, or a PC with a webcam is required. Transcription technology converts your spoken voice to text and facial recognition technology analyses your facial expressions and movements. The interview consists of a series of questions and activities, including games, on which you are assessed.

Step three is a face-to-face meeting in person, which can be very difficult to achieve given the previous two steps.

So, what are the pros and cons of this interviewing technique?

Candidate Benefits

• Interviews can take place at anytime and anywhere, at the convenience of the candidate.

HireVue has conducted 26 million on-demand interviews. • Every candidate goes through exactly the same interview, ensuring consistency of screening. • It can eliminate unconscious bias and inequality by removing the stereotypes and beliefs humans have regarding suitable candidates. • Speeds up the recruitment process.

Candidate Disadvantages

• Issues with accuracy can occur.

If a candidate fails to include certain buzzwords good candidates can miss out. Candidates who know how the technology works can include keywords and trick the system into thinking they are the best candidate. • The technology looks at past experience and other data points which can result in great candidates being overlooked. • It discriminates against people who are neurodivergent, such as people with dyslexia, Asperger’s, ADHD, autism and dyspraxia. These candi dates’ brains work differently and AI does not take that into consideration. Consequently, it has led to the exclusion of perfectly capable and highly qualified neurodi vergent employees from the workforce.

• Candidates are “put on the spot”, their minds can go blank and they may say or do the wrong thing. • The internet can lose connection, freeze or buffer. In timed interview activities this can lead to an unfair assessment. • Race, gender and emotion can be misinterpreted by some facial analysis technology. • Voice transcription services still struggle with accuracy when faced with accents. cont...

The Future of Hiring cont........

Employer Advantages

• The right questions are asked to elicit responses that can be measured and that are pertinent to predicting job performance based on occupational psychology research. • Increases diversity and talent pool by widening the search area. • There are clear performance indicators that differentiate the strongest from the least promising performers. • Saves time by conducting interviews and robust assessments at the same time. • Reduces applicant dropouts that occur with traditional long-winded recruitment processes. • By combining video interviews with predictive, validated occupational science and AI, the technology augments human decision-making in the hiring process and delivers higher quality talent, faster. • HireVue’s occupational psychologists have isolated proven factors that let companies objectively and impartially measure candidate potential. • Good for filtering through 1,000s of applications.

Employer Disadvantages

• AI is trained to find patterns in companies’ previous behaviour, identifying “the best” through the existing historical hiring data. This means that it could define the best candidates as those most similar to past employees.

• AI systems learn to make decisions based on training data, which can include biased human decisions or reflect historical or social inequalities. • It discriminates against people who are neurodivergent, such as people with Asperger’s, autism and dyspraxia. AI does not consider this which leads to exclusion from the workforce.

To improve your success rate, tailor your CV to the position you are applying for, then check its AI score for free at:

https://resumeworded.com.

This website uses AI similar to that used by employers to grade your CV and give you advice on how to improve your score. When you are invited to an automated interview, practice speaking into a camera on your own first so you are confident in the real one. Maintain eye contact with the camera, not your face, look into the camera. Make sure the device you are using is working properly ie, the camera, microphone, the battery is fully charged and you have a good internet connection. Dress as you would for a traditional interview; a real person may look at the recording.

AI is revolutionising the screening of candidates and with most of the benefits being with the employers, it is here to stay. Although it has some teething problems, these are being addressed, but there is still a way to go before all anomalies are overcome.

By Janette Davies