Using AI to Revolutionize Hiring for Top Talent, While Avoiding the Pitfalls

BY Matthew Koehler | November 15, 2023

The influence of AI on our world is profound and ongoing, though its effects may be more understated than the sensational headlines suggest. Instead of the Matrix abound, AI is enhancing the work of human hands by simplifying or eliminating rote tasks, and making it easier for companies and workers to focus on more important tasks.

“AI is a job transformer, right? What it is basically doing is automating things, like high volume, repetitive tasks. And it is giving us more time to think and do something that we’re good at like problem solving,” said Ankur Saxena, SVP & head of strategic operations and talent at Mphasis.

One of those areas of work where AI is improving processes, and will continue to streamline on both the client and user end, is in hiring and talent acquisition. But there are many pitfalls, namely in how AI carries human biases. During a recent From Day One webinar, Matt Charney, talent acquisition leader at HR.com, spoke with professionals in-the-know about AI and how it affects talent acquisition.

The Genetics of Bias in AI

“There was one very famous article about Amazon creating an AI hiring bot, and it failed miserably because it was trained on data. The data was from all the people who are working in the firm. Being about 70-80% males, they unintentionally created a sexist AI hiring tool. It kept on selecting only people who are males,” said Saxena.

The matching of resumes to job descriptions has been a practice for over 20 years, with a historical feedback loop embedded in the machine learning and AI processes, says Dan Finnigan, CEO of Filtered.

To overcome bias Saxena says organizations need to look at the data AI is getting trained on, because the people training the AI carry their own inherent biases. Next you have to monitor the output so you can understand the results you’re getting. He likens this to going to the gym and maintaining an exact regimen but never seeing any increases and positive changes in your abilities. You have to change your workout to see different results.

The full panel of speakers from top right: Dan Finnigan of Filtered, Ankur Saxena of Mphasis, Alec White of Computershare, Madeline Laurano of Aptitude Research, and moderator Matt Charney of HR.com (photo by From Day One)

Madeline Laurano co-founder of Aptitude Research turned the discussion to ethical AI and how it should be defined by transparency and specific use. “Ethical AI is pretty much defined by transparency. And are these providers going to be transparent with their algorithm? Or are they going to be transparent with the methodology that they’re using? Are they constantly re-evaluating it?”

Focusing on ethics, Charney directed the panel to think about two questions. First, will AI reduce bias going forward, or is automation bias simply replacing hiring bias? And within an organization, who is responsible for making ethical decisions behind AI-driven processes?

“I firmly believe that AI and recruiting is by definition biased, and maybe significantly so,” Finnigan said. He says that earlier in his career with Hot Jobs, product people found candidates using unseeable fonts to game the algorithm, and basically create a marketing document for themselves. On the company side, hiring managers would do the same, adding in things to make the job more appealing.

“And so it is biased by definition. It's just like the way we read news on social media; it's an echo chamber. So I would argue it's a bias accelerator so that we don't have to take the time to really try to figure out what's in the resume, or for the candidate to really figure out what's in the job description.” Finnigan says that the power of generative AI should be one that double checks bias and includes a process that is better at matching verified job skills, instead of just looking for patterns in applicants it's been trained to favor.

AI Is Still in its Infancy

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of companies out there that use AI very well for the hiring process, according to Laurano. She referenced Amazon's crash and burn with AI recruiting as a cautionary tale that’s still scary to a lot of talent acquisition leaders.

Charney turned to Alec White global head of talent acquisition at Computershare, which is in the early stages of that journey. White is working on the applicant tracking system. “We started with some fundamental things like digital interviewing, and self scheduling of interviews. And that, from the very beginning, felt natural. It’s the feedback loop that we’ve talked about.” White says that based on their metrics, their process doesn't “feel off putting to candidates, but like they are interacting with something human.”

“They could interview with us at midnight, with a digital interview, and then the system would tell them, ‘Hey, this is what is next’ and respond to questions and send them information that was customized to their role,” White continued. He says by personalizing the application process it doesn’t feel like a black hole with an automated email at the end saying not you.

Defining the Perfect AI Recruitment Tool

“I completely see it as an enhancer. I see AI as providing tremendous value to TA professionals, whether that’s being a campus recruiter all the way to a TA leader. “There’s lots of value in a lot of these use cases where AI can come in and improve the recruiter experience,” said Laurano.

She referenced research her firm did in early 2021 that looked at the recruiter experience. There were 14,000 job openings for recruiters that January, and the research found that they were wasting their time on tasks like managing job boards, manually advertising jobs, scheduling interviews, and more,  instead of connecting candidates with jobs. “AI can provide tremendous value in a lot of these use cases for recruiters. And I think recruiters that better understand and get excited about AI, they can get excited about generative AI."

“If you view a human as an algorithm, and you view AI as an algorithm, what do you trust as having less bias? We bring these biases into our organization, and it’s hard to unlearn those. But with AI, you can unlearn things, you can retrain it, and you can reduce bias in a way that you really can’t do with humans," Laurano added.

Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Filtered, for sponsoring this webinar.

Matthew Koheler is a freelance journalist and licensed real estate agent based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in Greater Greater Washington, The Washington Post, The Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others.

RELATED STORIES

How to Provide Fertility Benefits Without Breaking the Bank

Infertility impacts one in every six couples who are trying to conceive, according to the World Health Organization. “That number is staggering,” said Jenny Carillo, president of Ovia Health, who spoke in a recent From Day One webinar.“We’re seeing the average age of people who are trying to initiate their family building efforts increasing,” she told moderator Lydia Dishman. “People are now trying to conceive in their 30s and 40s, when they’re becoming less fertile.”However, a new report from Ovia Health suggests only 15% of employees have access to fertility benefits. “This benefit is very difficult to justify in terms of return on investment, and the reason why is that it’s crazy expensive,” said Arturo Arteaga, the senior director of total rewards at VCA Animal Hospitals.However, employees now see providing fertility benefits as their employer’s responsibility, says Kim Duck, VP of global benefits at News Corp. “I think it’s ramped up very, very quickly, where it used to be nice to have and now it is expected,” she said.That discussion began in the United States, but Duck said she was surprised how quickly it spread to global employees. “It’s just exploding everywhere,” she said. The Case for Fertility BenefitsOffering fertility benefits can be a difficult decision for employers because it serves only a small group of employees, says Arteaga. “You have to balance providing that benefit for a few or think of something else that can impact more people,” he said.However, 80% of the employees at VCA Animal Hospitals are women, so “it is something we need to do,” Arteaga said.Lydia Dishman of Fast Company moderated the panel on providing fertility benefits without breaking the bank (photo by From Day One)Even if a company offers fertility benefits, employees who use them still need to spend a lot of their own money to access care, says Arteaga. “But just imagine if you didn’t have the company helping you,” he said. “It’s just impossible for the majority of people.”For companies with difficulty recruiting new employees, fertility benefits can be a big advantage, says John Von Arb, VP of total rewards for Essentia Health.“We rely on our benefits as an employer of choice, and things like that encourage and incentivize individuals to come to us or to stay with us as we move forward,” he said.Fertility Benefits and the Continuum of CareHistorically, women’s reproductive health has been viewed as fragmented stages, such as conception, pregnancy, post-partum, and menopause, says Carillo.However, “the reality is this is a continuum of one’s life, and these periods of one’s life are connected to one’s whole health,” she said. “So, if we think about it from a whole health perspective, we’d like to anchor to the thought of prevention. And when you think about prevention, you’re able to really think about what preconception care looks like.”Carillo said helping employees be in a healthier place so they can conceive naturally is cost-effective compared to assisting them with fertility treatment costs.Providing benefits for young families doesn’t end after conception, says Duck. Some News Corps business units offer 20 weeks of parental leave that is gender agnostic.Essentia Health offers childcare support for mothers returning to work. Von Arb said this support is not just for day-shift employees, but also for those on the evening and overnight shifts. “All of those go with the broader context of family benefits,” he said.Talking to Employees About Fertility BenefitsInclusive language and inclusive perspectives are critical when talking to employees about fertility benefits, says Carillo. It’s important to be inclusive to men and the LBGTQ+ population seeking these treatments.Sometimes the male half of a heterosexual couple is only tested for infertility after healthcare providers have exhausted all the options for the woman in the relationship, says Arteaga. “I think that’s a cultural shift we have to change,” he said.Fortunately, younger generations are more open than older ones when it comes to discussing infertility, according to Von Arb. “Nothing is off the table,” he said. “I do think that it becomes a little easier for us to address some of these issues as we move forward, and frankly to communicate them a little more effectively, as there’s not a taboo around them.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Ovia Health, for sponsoring this webinar.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa. 

Mary Pieper | May 10, 2024

Skills-Based Hiring: Getting Started and Overcoming Common Objections

It’s never been easier to put skills-based hiring into practice. The tools and the resources are there–and the potential benefits are abundant. And yet, some leaders and hiring managers are skeptical.“One of the major positives about the skills-based approach is that it adds more science and rigor to the hiring process,” said Christopher Rotolo, vice president of global talent at Mitek. Adding science, Rotolo says, adds objectivity, which can remove some of the bias and “increase the validity of the whole hiring process.”“The fact is that over 60% of people don’t have a college degree. But that hasn’t stopped employers from benchmarking candidates that way,” said moderator Lydia Dishman, senior editor for growth and engagement at Fast Company. Dishman moderated a panel of leaders during From Day One’s recent webinar about Skills-Based Hiring: Getting Started and Overcoming Uncommon Objections.Unconscious bias can easily creep into the hiring process when looking at a candidate’s resume, which can reveal indicators like elite educational opportunities, prestige, race, and even generational wealth, none of which are necessarily predictors of career success. Hiring almost exclusively on skill can help employers dial into what really matters.Rather than focusing on degrees, says Amanda Richardson, CEO and head of people at CoderPad, “You have to dissect the role into the skills that are needed, working with the hiring manager and people who are currently in the role. The most important part of the conversation is not just ‘What are the skills?’ but ‘What does good look like?’” This approach requires more in-depth conversations between hiring managers and department leaders to get a stronger sense of not only what success looks like, but how previous successes can be communicated during the interview process.“I find that taking a practical approach [means] literally saying, ‘What does a great answer sound like? Does this person really know what they're talking about?’” said Stacey Olive, VP of talent acquisition and employer branding for Medidata, Dassault Systemes.“Because there’s not an empirical objective test for everything, we really have to go based on our conversations with people.” This means hiring managers need to prepare upfront so they can infer if they’re hearing “flowery language” merely alluding to past success, or if a candidate actually has lived experience that will be beneficial to the role.Focusing on skills-based hiring isn’t just a great way to reduce unconscious bias, it can also make the hiring process quicker. “A little bit of upfront work on understanding and aligning on the skills and the level of the skills needed will actually make a much faster hiring experience,” Richardson said.Semoneel Bamboat, VP and global head of diversity, inclusion and talent acquisition at Capri Holdings, shares that while her organization has a rubric within which they score talent competencies on a scale of one to five, her team does not let the skill scoring fully dictate the conversation.“While we have numbers and rigor around it, nothing is set in stone,” she said. “The purpose of that really is so we can cast this wide net. We don’t want to be that specific, because we don’t want to then lose sight of someone that might not fit that exactly.” Skills-forward hiring should be used to identify previously untapped candidates, not a blanket way to eliminate unusual or creative choices that could be an interesting fit.Richardson adds that getting too technical in the taxonomy can overwhelm the conversation, especially as hiring managers try to parse the subtleties between junior and senior versions of the same role. “I've seen the situation where developers start arguing about the nuances of ‘What does it mean to be very proficient versus mildly proficient?’ And I think you can lose the forest for the trees pretty quickly.”Copying and pasting old job descriptions when looking to fill a role is no longer enough. Instead, there should be periodic check-ins to make sure descriptions are up-to-date as the nature of the work, and therefore the role, continues to evolve. Part of this can be solved by shortening and simplifying the job listing. “It tends to be a lengthy laundry list of desires and needs. Instead, employers should aim to distill it into ‘What is the required skill for success?’” Olive said.With an eye toward DEI, Bamboat’s organization uses short external job listings with neutral language, keeping the more elaborate and specific job description for internal use only among the hiring team. “We take a lot of the details out to be able to cast that wide net,” she said.“We never want to post the exact job and be very specific about those requirements, because we feel like we’re decreasing our talent pool.” Bamboat shared the well-known study that showed women tend to only apply for jobs where they feel they will fit every single benchmark. Shortening the list of requirements can make it more inclusive. Once candidates make it to the interview phase, the hiring manager can discuss the specific details from the full listing to gauge if it’s a fit.In conversation moderated by Lydia Dishman of Fast Company, the panelists discussed the topic “Skills-Based Hiring: Getting Started and Overcoming Common Objections” (photo by From Day One)Pamela Rodas, global senior director of talent acquisition at Telus International, hires for a company with more than 3,000 types of job profiles, all of which are changing rapidly as her organization embraces hybrid workplaces and remote opportunities. In turn, she and her team must change how they assess skills. For example, her newer sales development hires may not have been exposed to an in-person environment where they could hone their technique. Therefore, she finds herself hiring more for soft skills or what Dishman prefers to call power skills, especially as the post-pandemic corporate environment has higher than ever expectations. “All of our clients want to go faster. So forget about skills, do you know how to do the job and do it in less time?” Rodas said.Trying to identify those more amorphous qualities, like being a fast learner, in a candidate can be a challenge. Panelists offered two solutions. The first is reviewing case studies. “To identify these characteristics that lead to outstanding performance, you study what those outstanding performers do,” Rotolo said.The second, is conducting actual testing during the hiring process. “Work simulations can be helpful, whether that means programming together for two hours or sitting and doing a sales demo. What are those real-world experiences where you can actually test the proof points?” Richardson said. Just having a great conversation in an interview is not necessarily enough.But the interview process can still be helpful if you are asking the right questions. “The research still says that behaviorally based questions are the most valid. And there’s really two types: ‘Tell me about a time when’’ past experiences, or situational questions,” Rotolo said.Rodas believes it’s also important to have an honest conversation about the nature of the role and pay attention to the applicant’s response. “The recruiter can [now] spend more time with the candidate talking about how they would endure the type of workload we’re going to put on them. In any type of business today, that’s worth 10 times more,” she said.This also means asking the right questions internally too, to ensure there is no unconscious bias at play and that a candidate’s competency is still at the forefront. “We have an opportunity now to ask [hiring managers], ‘What's the basis of your decision?’” Olive said. “You have to understand and politely point out where you think you see bias happening.”Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Honeysuckle Magazine, and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.

Katie Chambers | March 19, 2024

The Long-Term Shortage of Talent in the Post-Industrial Age: How Companies Can Respond

In the early industrial age, companies had a hierarchy built around manufacturing and machinery. But now workplaces are organized much differently. Their new priority? The talent. We’ve entered an era where the shortage of workers, obsolescence of skills, and new levels of employee agency will present employers with historic challenges. Most companies are not ready.The new Intelligence Age is a time when skills, employee creativity, information and AI will define our companies. In a recent From Day One webinar about “The Long-Term Shortage of Talent in the Post-Industrial Age: How Companies Can Respond,” speakers explored three strategies for success: rethinking the organization as dynamic rather than static, rethinking management with human-centered leadership, and rethinking HR as no longer an expense center, but rather a function like R&D that must build and invest in the company's people.All told, this means we need to redesign our companies around the person and shift to a new model for work. The time to act is now, experts say.The Changing Power Structure in the Labor MarketThe renowned Josh Bersin, founder & CEO of The Josh Bersin Company, says that with Baby Boomers retiring and declining fertility rates, there will be smaller generations coming forward to replace them. Employers will have a high demand for skilled workers but a much smaller talent pool, he says.“If you look at the supply and demand of workers and the labor force, it’s absolutely different from what we’ve seen in the past,” said Sania Khan, chief economist and head of market insights at Eightfold, an AI-driven talent intelligence platform.This could signal tough times ahead, especially in an age where companies are defined more and more by people and ideas than by machinery and products. “Scarcity of talent is one of the biggest challenges out there for companies,” said moderator Steve Koepp, From Day One’s chief content officer and co-Founder.Bersin notes that his company is getting consistent feedback from employers post-pandemic that they are having trouble sourcing new talent and with the retention of what is “a highly empowered workforce. We have employees saying, ‘I'm going to quietly quit. I'm going to work my wage. I'm going to do what I need to do. I don’t care what you say. You don’t like hybrid work? Tough luck, I’ll go find a job where I can work remotely.”Bersin predicts this is a long-term trend, and companies need to get smarter about finding and keeping their people. This is especially true in industries like healthcare, which is facing a major labor shortage despite a recent BLS report predicting 54% of new jobs will be in healthcare due in part to that same aging population that is decreasing the workforce.A Renewed Focus on Employees and ProductivityWith technology changing rapidly and more and more roles relying on it, companies will need to prioritize upskilling and reskilling opportunities to keep their workforce up-to-date and competitive. “Companies will need to focus on their employees,” Khan said, noting that companies that don’t prioritize training are already experiencing higher employee turnover.Another way to curb turnover is to take a hard look at workplace policies and make sure they are serving employees personally to make the organization more attractive, whether that is through flexible hours, hybrid options, and even AI assistance, Khan says.Bersin’s organization just finished a report on the prevalence of the four-day workweek or work time reduction. “This is becoming a big deal because employees want flexibility. We’re finding that this idea creates job productivity, and forces companies to redesign jobs,” Bersin said. “There are things that we’re going to do that seem unnatural now to deal with this labor shortage. In the future they will be commonplace. That’s just one example.”The recent webinar featured Josh Bersin of the Josh Bersin Company and Sania Khan of Eightfold (photo by From Day One)This changing definition of productivity, a focus on “revenue per employee” rather than hours worked, will also serve working parents well, Khan says, as they manage to get more work done in a shorter period.“Hiring more people isn’t necessarily more productive,” Khan said. Companies will start to measure their success by how efficiently they are utilizing their human resources to generate revenue, a focus on output rather than the size of the team. “The companies that are really good at productivity are good at human resources. They’re good at training, facilitating workshops, redesigning jobs, flattening the corporate hierarchy, changing the role of leaders, and democratizing career development,” Bersin said. “These things that might have felt like ‘nice-to-haves’ ten years ago are becoming critical to becoming productive in this new economy.”Reimagining a Skills-based HierarchyIn the information age, employment has been less about job titles and more about the work, Bersin says, with employees taking on tasks and using their skills for objectives far beyond their stated job description in order to accomplish the mission of the day, week, or month. “These rigid job descriptions, titles, and hierarchies are getting in the way of reorganizing and redesigning the company to be more efficient,” Bersin said. He anticipates an existential change in which the titles of managers and corner office perks will be deprioritized in order to get the work done.In turn, companies will be looking less at what skills prospective employees currently have and instead look at adjacent skills that show an employee has the potential to be upskilled to be the right fit, Khan says. A focus on skills, says Bersin, can also pave the way for automation. Employees can be allowed to utilize the top of their skill set if their lower-level, less skilled tasks can be automated.“If you look at the needs of an organization, you can put employees in specific, goal-centric projects,” Khan said. “Instead of just having you siloed to one department, you can now move around to where you’re needed based on your skills.” This would also allow employees to be well-versed in the whole enterprise, rather than just one area, so both the individual and the organization benefit. And tools like Eightfold can use machine learning to help companies analyze what skill areas are lacking and fill those gaps with talent.How Leaders Can Adapt to the New Workforce“Leaders have to understand this labor shortage existentially and operate in a company where transformation and growth isn’t an episodic thing–it's never-ending,” Bersin said. “The new model of leadership is, ‘can you build a company that can move people around, that can develop people, that can hold people accountable, but also give them the opportunity to move when you need them into a new place?’ Those are different kinds of leadership skills.”And with the hierarchy flattening, workers need to be prepared to sometimes be leaders and other times be more subordinate depending on the current project. “We have to democratize the concept of leadership.” Those with flexibility and an appetite for innovation will be most attractive to potential employers, Khan adds.And in a talent-driven company, HR will become more and more essential, and will be called on to understand a wide variety of skills, roles, and changing corporate models to operate within skills-based planning, Bersin says. Gone are the days where HR will be associated with conflict resolution and complaints. Instead, HR is becoming a forward-thinking, technology, and data-driven career path.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Eightfold, for sponsoring this webinar. You can read more from Josh Bersin on the post-industrial age here.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Honeysuckle Magazine, and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.

Katie Chambers | December 19, 2023