In the future, AI will not only take away human jobs, but it will also prevent workers from finding work

Times change: before you can sit opposite the employer 'blue eyes,' you must catch the 'magic eye' of artificial intelligence.

Job support centers for students in the US are familiar with the process of preparing their luggage for life for new graduates; The work is simple, how to dress or shape the letters for the letter of recommendation that stands out. But things change, the technological age has made the path to finding a different job.

At schools like Duke University, Purdue University or the University of North Carolina, career-oriented advisers are finding out which companies are applying AI to their hiring , and doing their best to help new students get better. How to write records to get automatic algorithms 'preferred' more. This work is increasingly urgent, as many businesses find candidates for internships, low-demand positions by hiring external companies to conduct video interviews; For example, HireVue can do a large number of video interviews in a short amount of time.

A business will give a series of questions to HireVue - usually a video of what an interviewer will ask or ask - so that the candidate will answer through the laptop camera or smartphone. Candidate response videos will be filtered by an algorithm that analyzes details such as the words the candidate uses, how to use the sentences, facial expressions, voice tone and tries to determine if the candidate has what qualities.

Based on that analysis, the algorithm will conclude whether a candidate has what quality, whether persistent, energetic, or knowledgeable in teams, etc.

The problem of AI taking jobs from people has created countless worries, but similar services like HireVue show a completely new concern: AI can also become the first obstacle to the process. applying for long and hard work . A company will not dare to recruit senior officers, department directors by this method, but they can freely recruit lower positions through external companies like HireVue.

The aching problem has not stopped there, there are no laws or regulations that prohibit the application of the technology to recruitment; If the state of Illinois just changed that with a new law, requiring employers to do three things: tell candidates that they can apply AI to their recruitment, providing clear information about How to apply AI and most importantly, ask candidates to apply AI in the recruitment process.

Job seekers in Illinois may be lucky, but individuals elsewhere won't know when they're being scrutinized by AI's cold eyes. New graduates are blinded, they look to employment consultants - who are also blind when not knowing how the process is done.

Sarah Ali, a graduate student at Duke University, underwent a total of 8 interviews through HireVue; I want to apply for a job, or even just become a trainee in technology and marketing. Only the first interview earned me an internship, there was no chance of success. Even when I received 7 refusals, I was still not sure which process artificial intelligence interfered with and why it missed me.

I confess that if I knew in advance that AI would play a role in judging me through interviews, I could have done many other things. I was able to use other keywords and other answers to make AI easier to identify. Or more simply, you can constantly look directly at the camera so that the machine looks at you with a different eye.

There must be a reason why companies that use AI are recruiting

At the moment, HireVue is probably the most popular company for conducting video interviews, as many as 800 businesses use their services (though not everyone uses their AI-based interview mechanism). ). According to CEO Kevin Parker, HireVue interviews about 1 million candidates every 90 days.

' Within this year, we may have interviewed about a million students, ' Mr. Parker told CNN.

He also said that the company started using AI in 2014, using artificial intelligence as a tool for rating video interviews. Parker did not specify how many places were applying this candidate screening, but idly stated that 'a small number' of companies working with HireVue use AI to recruit. On HireVue's homepage, you can see many big names are applying new recruitment technology, such as HBO, vodafone or Unilever.

Mr. Parker said that the system's algorithm takes into account details such as the use of candidate words and facial expressions to determine who has the skills necessary for specific jobs; One of the algorithmic factors is the ability to empathize with others, or whether the candidate is willing to learn.

The use of AI to evaluate candidates is often applied to the process of finding less-demanding jobs, because then candidates will have little work history at other companies. The main purpose of this system, according to Mr. Parker, is that AI becomes a tool to evaluate candidates' abilities and talents.

After the AI ​​has finished analyzing an interview (an interview video will take about 20 to 25 minutes), the customer - that is, the employer will receive a score report, including the strengths. supposedly useful for jobs in need. According to Parker, this will help companies build a floor for the work they need, so that candidates know their outstanding points and ability compared to other candidates. The employer has the right to decide whether to share this 'transcript' with employees.

' We encourage companies that use the service to share the interview results, I think it is a positive feedback for the candidates, but the decision is still with our customers ,' Parker said. to speak. While CEO HireVue advises it, it is not clear how many companies transparently score points with the candidates.

"We don't know what the system needs."

For Meredith McCook, the assistant director at the employment help center, her job has changed a little: more and more employers are using a new interview method, which is to shoot videos of candidates answering questions. interviews and likely an artificial intelligence will participate in screening potential candidates. Ms. McCook still told students about how technology affects the hiring environment, and then instructed young human resources to practice talking to the laptop camera. Besides, she opened an online class to teach how to do video interviews.

' With AI intervention, we don't know what the system needs now ,' Ms. McCook said. But just in case the AI ​​evaluates the interview, she advises students to place the laptop so that the camera is at eye level, so that they can continuously look at the employer 'eyes, even if the other end of the phone has could be an inanimate machine.

' The path to finding a job is like crossing the Wild West, ' says Matthew French, assistant director of employer relations at UNC Charlotte's job search center.

Mr. French tries to help students know as much as possible about the new recruitment method. UNC Charlotte itself also asked companies to collaborate with the school, to find out which units use AI in recruitment, to better understand the growing trend.

Mr. French worries about the future of students and the use of AI in recruitment. ' Anyone can immediately make an initial assessment of a candidate when they first meet them. But what worries me is that the AI ​​will not be able to recognize whether the candidate has the enthusiasm or not, the purpose of a young person who has just graduated from the school exists . '

Any employer wants to use AI for fast, but it works?

Many people, from job advisers to academics in artificial intelligence, are skeptical of AI capabilities as well as recruitment results returned to candidates. ' When people start saying things like' We use elements like intonation, facial expressions and the like, 'I'm really skeptical about the value of the output ,' 'Aaron Rieke said. , CEO of Upturn. nonprofits related to technology use rights, speak out.

Associate Professor Arvind Narayanan, a computer science major at Princeton University, said that AI can be useful in identifying which cats and dogs are, it is very poor at determining a person's ability, to then determine if they can succeed in the future. His suspicions swept into companies that declared expressive analytical capabilities to determine their ability to work; HireVue claims its AI does this, but CEO Parker also emphasizes that they use this 'very, very little' aspect .

Even, the Electronic News Security Center has filed a request to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate HireVue about providing unfair and deceptive recruiting services, through the use of AI to assess the ability of applicants. tablets with ' unverified, secret algorithms '.

In its statement, HireVue said it believes the complaints are unfounded, and that they ' uphold the highest level of accuracy and ethics in their daily efforts to increase fairness and customer satisfaction. of the hiring process ".

Everyone has their own reasons, so a specific set of laws is needed

Employers have their own reasons, saying that when there are too many candidates who want to work for them, they will not be able to take the time to meet one by one. In the time of money, it was impossible to meet every person to interview for low-demand jobs.

New graduates with no work experience or technology-less people trying to find a new job opportunity obviously have a different mindset. They are seeing a barrier created by a cold algorithm, analyzing each of their words spoken by technology that is still immature. They may not be offered the opportunity to dedicate or get early jobs because employers are not willing to provide the necessary information, even the simplest elements such as ' intellectual employers. artificial to evaluate candidates or not '.

Those in the middle, dedicated professionals who want to find jobs for candidates, the university wants graduates to find a parking, stuck in the cloudy information environment.

It seems AI not only deprives people of their jobs, but can also directly prevent people from looking for work. It is clear that there is a need for clear rules to govern this very new technology.

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