Have you seen the commercial of the car that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) that keeps running over a 3-4-foot crash dummy sitting in the middle of the street? That AI system is in production and on cars right now and it shows how far AI needs to go to drive your car safely.
It also serves as an example of the AI that is growing fast in the recruiting world in the form of Artificial Video Intelligence (AVI) which is used to make autonomous hiring decisions without any human interaction with the candidates applying to open position with a company.
Trying to cut time is understandable and takes subjective reasoning out of the sourcing and screening process. There are many useful tools that can help you do that, but to the point where a machine is making decisions based on facial recognition, body movement, eye movement, speech patterns, vocabulary, etc., is going a bit too far.
The technology is not fully developed to make human decisions on anything that it is not programmed for, and it sends a message to candidates that your company is too busy to personally spend time in a meaningful interaction. Sending the signal to quality candidates that you don’t have time to spend with them is not good. Especially in a labor market where demand is outstripping the supply of qualified candidates.
A recent Harvard Business Review article outlined the pros and cons of AVI as well as the laborious process the candidates should go through to perform well in an AVI interview.
The pandemic triggered many processes to move online, including job interviews. They save both time and money. But the change hasn’t always been positive. These AVI interviews are often with new, young workers with very limited interview experience. The AVI interviews allow only a short, pre-defined time to answer sometimes complex questions.
How does one impress a bot leading an interview – especially a new, inexperienced candidate? There is a complete lack of human interaction. These AVI interviews can be very stressful and what type of impression does it leave about the company?
The Harvard research found that it’s often a confusing and unsettling experience for job seekers. They go on to list a very lengthy process that job seekers should follow to ace their AVI. It sounded more like the process used by actors to audition for a part – probably why there are so many actors busing tables these days.
In addition, the programming within any Algorithms used to make decisions on candidates is under scrutiny from the EEOC because the programming used could be discriminatory in nature and, in most cases, is not certified. This issue is currently being evaluated by the EEOC and The Department of Justice.
So, for the time being, I’ll send my Avatar to interview with you, AI bot.
Source: Are You Prepared to Be Interviewed by an AI? by Zahira Jaser and Dimitra Petrakaki February 07, 2023, Harvard Business Review