Is Recruiting Becoming a Battle of AIs?

Is AI a boon or a bane for recruitment? A June 2023 survey from Resume Builder showed 43% of the 1,000 employees polled said their company already had adopted or planned to adopt AI to conduct interviews with new job candidates by 2024. At the time, more than half believed AI would eventually replace human hiring managers.

Fast forward to today, and some employers have indeed handed the interviewing reins to AI and away from the people previously responsible for conducting personal interviews. And now, some applicants are turning the tables on employers, using AI to break through the noise and advance to the next step in the process.

In the end, recruiters say, it’s become a messy environment on both sides of the process.

AI Ain’t for Everyone

An April 2024 WIRED story reported an in-house recruiter’s experience with AI, where the technology was used to conduct an initial sorting of candidates by dispensing what was deemed “a lengthy and difficult task assessment.” Recruiters would then review results of those who managed to pass the test to move them on to the next phase of the process: the one-on-one interview. But they soon realized that some candidates could not even answer questions that had been addressed during the assessment, leading them to believe the applicants themselves had made good use of AI to provide the correct answers on the test and secure a spot in the second round. That, the article wrote, wasted the recruiters’ time — especially because it could have been used toward a candidate who did things correctly.

Even more frustrating is candidates leveraging AI to create resumes and cover letters that fit a role they are not qualified for, Valtech's Kristen Rock told Reworked.

“I totally get that it is common practice to adjust a resume to the role you are applying to based on your skills that match the opportunity. However, the burnout of repetitive and same language being seen on different candidates is quite high,” said Rock, who is director of talent acquisition operations, North America at the firm.

She recommends candidates think about how and why they are applying to roles, particularly when they don’t have the qualifications listed in the posting.

“If you are applying to a role that is a slight stretch, that is great, you are hoping to grow, and I think everyone should challenge themselves,” she said. “But if you are a plumber and apply for an electrician’s job, you should have the skills to back yourself up.”

It is becoming increasingly evident that while AI can help a job search, it can also hurt efforts.

“AI takes requests literally. Seasoned recruiters read between the lines on resumes,” Rock explained. “While AI might help gather an initial pool of candidates, you still must review and consider the resumes that come your way. AI doesn’t yet have the construct of knowing whether a background is good or bad. It merely knows that someone has the key components you ask it to search for.”

Can AI Help Recruiters?

Consensus among those utilizing AI is growing around the idea that it should not be siloed or used for one-off situations, but rather as a fitting component to a broader strategy.

While Rock’s company is not pushing an AI agenda, she is challenging her colleagues to think about platforms that can improve current processes. So far, she said her team has yet to find a platform that works for them. But she does not despair. “From my perspective,” she said, “it is just another resource in my toolkit, not my go-to.”

It appears some of the downsides of AI in recruiting right now are caused by companies that use AI as a stand-alone solution. Rock said that’s a misstep because the human element can actually amplify the AI experience — for both sides of the job application process.

Some observers caution that certain AI platforms claiming to be a fix can become more of a hindrance.

“There are unbelievable amounts of opportunistic startups claiming to have a great product or solution to help recruiters out,” said Jon Heise, president of Chicago-based Covert Recruiting. “Having worked as both an in-house recruiter as well as within executive search, I have experienced or sampled half-baked platforms that claim to be ‘the greatest AI product.’ Unfortunately what many are really doing is merely taking advantage of the current wave of interest.”

Importantly, Heise noted, recruiters have to be mindful of what is truly being sourced as AI.

“A lot of tools that are called AI are really the same old filters that have been used for years,” he said, noting that such stalwarts as LinkedIn offer in-house recruiters value with their current technology infrastructure.

“When recruiters find an ideal person using LinkedIn, it can help us find other similar people. But where we are seeing a lot of problems is that default AI is producing content and verbiage that typically stinks.”

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