Serious question about that AI hiring tool my company tried last month

We tested this AI screening tool for resumes where I work in Chicago. It filtered out half the applicants who listed volunteer work, which seemed weird. Has anyone else seen automated systems miss obvious potential like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

xena_fox391mo ago

Man that bit about volunteer work getting cut is wild but honestly not surprising. I've been suspicious of those systems ever since my friend told me about her own experience with one. She had years of night classes and certifications she paid for herself, stuff that showed real grit, but the AI dinged her because her resume had a gap where she was taking care of her sick mom. The system couldn't see the human part. Its basically just looking for keywords and patterns that match what some manager in a boardroom thought was important, not what actually makes someone good at a job.

zara57214d ago

Hold on, are we sure these AIs are actually the problem here though? I mean like, companies have always had some kind of dumb filter, back in the day it was a secretary tossing your resume in the trash because you didn't have the right college's letterhead. At least an AI is consistent, it doesn't look at your name or where you live or whatever. And @rubyschmidt, isn't the whole point of cloning your top performers actually smart? If your best sales guy has a certain background, wouldn't you want a bunch more people just like him? The real issue is probably that managers don't know what actually makes someone good, so they feed the AI bad data to work with.

rubyschmidt1mo ago

Yeah and heres something else that doesnt get talked about enough, those systems are basically locking people out of jobs theyd actually be perfect for because they cant measure stuff like loyalty or work ethic. My buddy works in HR and he told me companies train those AIs on their current top performers, but that just means theyre cloning what already worked instead of finding people who could bring something new. Its like if you only hired firefighters who looked exactly like the last guy who did the job, youd miss the kid who grew up in that neighborhood and knows every back alley shortcut. The real problem is nobody wants to take responsibility when the AI makes a bad call, they just blame the algorithm lol.