When it comes to hiring and firing, artificial intelligence (AI) has an image problem. Many of us don’t like the idea of putting decisions that can seriously impact people’s lives in the hands of machines, particularly when we might not necessarily understand how and why they do what they do.
But what if it turns out that machines were actually capable of making decisions in a way that is fairer and less prone to prejudice and bias than decisions made by humans? For many of those working on the problem of applying machine intelligence to recruitment and HR, this is the goal. And going a step further than that, is it possible that AI can help overcome the challenges of today’s fast-changing hiring landscape? The shift to home and remote working prompted by the global Covid-19 pandemic, as well as related developments such as the “ great resignation ”, require HR departments to navigate and predict their way around complex and ever-changing employee behavioral patterns.
These are the type of patterns that AI excels at recognizing, understanding, and predicting. This is why Google is so good at predicting what you want to search for, and Netflix is so accurate at predicting what you want to watch next – 80% of viewing on the streaming service is apparently driven by recommendations!
Nevertheless, while we might be happy for a machine to help us choose which movie to watch next, we might feel a bit uneasy at the thought of it deciding whether we can have a job or not – or which workers a company should hire or fire.
I was reassured to learn that these are concerns that are shared by Frida Polli, the CEO and founder of Pymetrics – one of the leading AI-driven recruitment platforms. I was recently joined by Polli for a conversation in which we discussed the ethical implications of this type of technology, as well as how it is evolving to help companies understand concepts like “soft skills”. These are concepts that can be vital to understanding how well a candidate might fit a certain role but are often poorly conveyed by traditional recruitment data gathering channels – such as resumes and interviews.
Crucially, by helping organizations get a better understanding of what candidates have to offer in this regard, they can lead to less biased and more effective recruiting decisions. This is a view held not just by Polli but by one of her company's customers – Tan Moorthy, global head of education, training, and assessment at Infosys.
