The Impact of AI on Candidate Assessment and Selection

Artificial Intelligence is all the rage right now and isn’t just restricted to ChatGPT. AI usage can be found in almost all fields and industries. The Hiring process has not been spared either. Around 40% of all companies worldwide already use AI in some way or another in their recruitment process.

AI in recruitment caught up quickly compared to other industries, and there has been far less objection to AI usage in recruitment than in other fields.

AI has also proved beneficial in its first trial runs and experiments. The setbacks and complaints found, however, are made less by the recruiters and more by the candidates.
In this article, let us evaluate the impact AI has had on the assessment and selection of candidates.

How is AI used in Recruitment?

The recruitment process consists of various stages—sourcing, screening, assessment, interview, selection, co-ordination and onboarding. Each of these, when left only to humans, requires a lot of manpower, time, and resources. The Human Resource Departments of all big companies find themselves buried and almost always short of staff.
With newer technologies, AI designed to carry out specific recruitment procedures has emerged.

AI technologies used in Recruitment

AI is a blanket term for software intelligent enough to understand, interpret, and conclude through external data. There are various classifications within AI based on its complexity and level of intelligence, as shown in the picture. Based on its classification, AI can conduct various recruitment tasks.

Algorithm—Narrow AI; capable of reviewing shortlisting resumes based on pre-determined qualifications.

Social Robot—General AI; capable of interacting with candidates and analyzing facial expressions, speech, gestures, etc.

Speech Analysis—General AI; capable of analyzing language, such as the use of words, vocabulary, and other factors.

An organization can use AI in recruitment in various ways. AI can be used to perform monotonous or skill-based tasks or more complex tasks like interviewing candidates.

Considering that stages like interviews require a ‘human touch,’ many companies adopt AI technologies for other processes that are based entirely on technical or tangible qualities of a candidate that a non-human can perform. Tasks like personality judgment, which technological software cannot be trusted to do, are still carried out by humans.

AI-based assessments have especially become a part of the hiring process as software best carries out testing the candidate on their technical skills as it is less prone to bias and overlooking mistakes.
Big corporations like McDonald’s, Bank of America, Tata Communications, Amazon, and Walmart make use of AI in recruiting and in various stages and functions. Bank of America uses AI to conduct interviews as well.

Impact of AI on Recruitment

To say that AI has had a great impact on recruitment would be an understatement. AI has altered the course of the hiring process forever. AI models are now doing tasks like writing and sending e-mails, writing job descriptions, shortlisting from a bundle of resumes, and many more that take up unnecessary time for the HRD.

Fairness

The biggest impact AI has had is with respect to its unbiased nature. Humans are prone to favoritism, nepotism, and discrimination, but AI is not. Whether used for sifting through resumes or conducting interviews, AI will assess only based on the skill sets and qualifications it is programmed to find.
Though the fact that the developer could have incorporated biased programming has not gone unnoticed. Many have raised their concerns, and most job seekers are uncertain when it comes to AI in recruitment. More on this later.

Objective Assessment

The various online assessments used in recruitment make use of AI, which makes no mistakes and notices nothing else but the skill of the candidate. This makes the assessments as objective as they will ever get, and it saves a lot of time and trouble for the HRD.
AI is capable of creating the assessment itself as well as concluding and shortlisting based on its results. Even the candidates can rest assured in the case of assessments, as a machine can always be trusted in technical matters and in those that require objectivity and precision.

Personality Assessment

AI is capable of assessing not only the skills but also the personalities of candidates. It observes expressions, tone of voice, word use, and other factors to interpret this data and reach a conclusion.
This, however, is something the candidates find uncomfortable as answering to a machine is very unnatural, and one cannot carry out a proper conversation but only receive robotic answers. These worries of the candidates are valid concerns as it is tremendously different from being interviewed by a human, even as the new AI technologies include emotional intelligence. It is also not possible to carry out the assessment of a personality within an interview, not to mention letting a robot assess something as complex as a human personality.

Performance Forecast

AI not only assesses the personality of candidates but makes future predictions as to how they will perform as well. This makes it easier to decide on whom to hire based on the requirements of the company.
This also causes concern among people because as accurate as a forecast may be, it is quite improbable to assess the whole personality of a person based on an interview.

Candidate Discontent

As many companies have begun adopting AI in recruiting, many candidates have expressed their discontent. AI is something as yet not trusted or relied on by them and the completely objective and robotic nature of the process makes them uncomfortable.
A big factor in AI-based recruiting is the fact that the conclusions reached by AI cannot wholly be explained. So, when candidates express their feelings of injustice, the recruiters possess no solid answer for their rejection except that the AI assessed their personality to be unfit.

The Way Forward

It would be foolish to suggest the complete removal of AI in recruitment, yet it is essential to warn about its ill effects.

All theories and experiments conducted throughout the 19th century to understand labor and workers and to come up with ways to achieve both—satisfaction of workers and maximum production have already told us that to keep a corporation producing at its best, providing the workers with a sense of community, belonging and benefit is necessary. AI in recruitment—at least to the extent where it becomes the sole decider on the selection of a candidate—will do the exact opposite. Already, research has shown that candidates have been rejecting offers from places where the recruitment process has involved a major input from AI.

The best course of action for all companies would be to make use of AI in such a way that the administrative, monotonous, and cyclical tasks like writing job descriptions, shortlisting resumes, and sending out e-mails be carried out by AI, while the real tasks which require human input and a personal touch be carried out by humans still.

The fact that AI eradicates fairness is only true when the corporation truly wishes to be fair. Otherwise, it is quite easy to program a bias into the AI model. A solution could be to make use of an AI model during interviews, but not on its own. It can be one of the panel members, so if it is indeed too logical in its judgment, we can take over and see the qualities and traits that AI fails to possess. This might also help in making the candidates feel at home.

Conclusion

The future is AI. Undoubtedly. But it is up to us to decide what that future will look like. Will we extinguish all human elements that keep this world lively and let AI and its logic be the decider of all things?
Or will we use AI for tasks that do not require a heart and a natural mind and handle the rest ourselves?
If used right, AI can be used as a tool like any other and there need not be any cause for concern, but when handled wrong or irresponsibly, AI can be the cause for an organizations’ reduced employer brand and company standing.
Embrace change, but do not let it choke you.
Happy Hiring!