Have you ever carefully drafted a job application for a role you’re sure you’re perfect for, only to get no response? There’s a good chance no one has ever seen your application – even if you’ve taken the advice on the internet to copy and paste all the skills from the job description.
Employers, especially large companies, are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to quickly reduce candidates to shortlists to help make hiring decisions. One of the most widely used AI tools is an applicant tracking system (ATS), which can filter and rank applicant resumes against an employer’s criteria before a recruiter looks at the best matches.
And the systems are getting smarter: some AI companies claim their platforms can not only determine the most qualified candidate, but also predict who is most likely to excel in a role.
“The first thing employers need to understand is: No one is looking at your resume. You have to pass the AI’s gauntlet before they see you [by a recruiter]”says Joseph Fuller, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School.
While AI hiring tools can save businesses time and money when all they want to do is fill a job, experts warn that the platforms can overlook qualified candidates — and even introduce new biases into hiring processes. if not used carefully.
Meanwhile, job seekers are typically unaware of exactly which AI tools are being used and how their algorithms work, leaving them frustrated to seek advice on how to “beat” recruiting software — most of them only scratch the surface.
AI can ‘hide’ future workers
Last year, Fuller co-authored a study on “hidden workers”—candidates who are overlooked by companies because of their hiring practices, including the use of AI tools.
The researchers interviewed more than 2,250 executives in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. They found that more than 90 percent of companies use tools like ATS to initially filter and rank candidates.
But they often did not use it well. Sometimes applicants were assessed against bloated job descriptions full of unnecessary and inflexible criteria, leaving some qualified candidates “hidden” under others the software deemed more suitable.
WATCH | The expert explains the rise of AI in the hiring process:
Why recruiters are increasingly relying on AI
Joseph Fuller, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, says most job applicants now have to run their resumes through an AI robot to be seen by humans.
Depending on how the AI is configured, it can downgrade or filter candidates due to factors such as a gap in their career or lack of a college degree, even when the role doesn’t require a post-secondary education.
“Ninety-plus per cent of companies just admit, ‘We know this process excludes qualified people,'” Fuller told CBC News.
Those overlooked candidates include immigrants, veterans, people with disabilities, caregivers and people with neurological diversity, among others, he added.
The researchers urged employers to write new job descriptions and configure their AI to include candidates whose skills and experience meet the essential requirements of the role, rather than excluding them based on other criteria.
The new rules for (AI) hiring
The US government has issued guidance for employers on the potential of automated recruitment software discriminate against applicants with disabilities — even when AI claims to be “bias-free.”
And starting this April, employers in New York will have to tell applicants and employees when they use AI tools in hiring and promotion — and screen those technologies for bias.
While Canada’s federal government has its own policy on the use of AI, there are no rules or guidelines for other employers, although legislation currently in parliament would require creators and users of artificial intelligence systems to adopt measures to reduce damage and bias to mitigate damage and bias (details of what counts as “high-impact” AI have yet to be specified).
So for now, it’s up to employers and their hiring teams to understand how their AI software works—and any potential drawbacks.
“I advise HR practitioners who need to look at and have open conversations with their suppliers: ‘Okay, what’s in your system? What is the algorithm? … What does it track? What does it allow me to do?” said Pamela Lirio, associate professor of international human resource management at the Université de Montréal.
Pamela Lirio, associate professor of international human resource management at the Université de Montréal, says it’s important for organizations to understand how their AI recruiting algorithm works. (CBC)
Lirio, who specializes in emerging technologies, says it’s also important to question who created the AI and whose data it was trained on, pointing to the example of Amazon, which in 2018 removed its internal recruitment tool AI after discovering that it is biased against female job applicants.
The system was trained on the resumes of past applicants — who were overwhelmingly male — so the AI learned to downgrade applicants whose resumes mentioned competing in women’s sports leagues or graduating from women’s colleges.
As artificial intelligence becomes smarter and more attuned to the types of candidates an employer likes based on who it has hired in the past, companies risk repeating Amazon’s mistake, says Susie Lindsay, counsel at the Law Commission of Ontario. which has explored the potential regulation of AI in Canada.
“If you’re just going to use a recruiting tool to look at resumes—or even look for a tool to help your existing employees decide who to promote—and you’re looking at who’s been successful so far, you’re…not enabling people who don’t fit that exact pattern to potentially advance,” Lindsey said.
Amazon shut down its experimental AI recruiting tool in 2018 after discovering it was biased against women. In this photo, job seekers line up at an Amazon job fair in Fall River, Massachusetts, on August 2, 2017. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Can you actually “beat” the hiring bots?
Do a web search for “how to beat ATS” and you’ll find thousands of results, including from professional resume writers and online tools offering tips to help you populate your resume with the right keywords to get past AI and place it on the desk of a recruiter.
But keywords are just one of many data points that increasingly advanced AI systems use. Others include the names of companies you’ve worked for in the past, how far along you are in your career, and even how far you live from the organization you’re applying to.
“With a proper AI system that is able to understand the context of the skill and the relationships between skills, [keyword-stuffing] it’s just not as prolific as it used to be,” says Morgan Llewellyn, chief data scientist at recruiting technology company Jobvite.
Instead of trying to fool the algorithm, experts recommend applying for jobs that match the skills, knowledge and experience you really have—keeping in mind that a person always makes the final decision.
“Even if you put in that keyword, well, well, what have you been doing? What was your job, a job title you held in the past?” says Robert Spilak, vice president of ATS provider TalentNest.
“You have to meet the requirements [of the role]. If you don’t meet any of them, then of course [a] A human or some automation will filter you out.”
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