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0:00
Hi and welcome to
this talk on Robotics
and AI in Recruitment
and Selection Practices.
I am Sladjana Nørskov,
associate professor at Aarhus
University in Denmark.
0:14
Recruitment and selection
have experienced
an increasing digitalization
in the last few decades
offering the opportunity for
easier and faster procedures.
Methods such as
online applications,
online psychometric testing,
digital interviews,
and gamified
assessments have been
taken up by organizations.
In this context, robotics and
artificial intelligence
(AI) have recently
attracted attention for
their applicability,
visibility, and
various other effects.
AI and robotics allow
certain tasks and processes
which have typically been
done by HR employees to be
transferred to a machine.
While organizations may
have many reasons to
consider robots
and AI as part of
recruitment and
selection procedures,
the following two
reasons seem prominent.
Firstly, to increase
efficiency via
automation, so for
instance cost and time
reduction or to
release resources for
other HR tasks and
secondly, to increase
objectivity of the
process because
AI and robotics may
be able to reduce or
eliminate human bias
in hiring and thereby
increase fairness, diversity,
inclusiveness and so on.
It is in particular
the latter objective that
is the focus of this talk.
1:36
Biases are indeed an
important hurdle in
application selection because
they cause discrimination.
Here I focus on
implicit biases that
involve rapid and
automatic processing of
information which
occurs unconsciously
and tends to be difficult
to control and change.
Such biases are challenging
not only because of
their unconscious
nature, but also
because they can be a
direct contradiction to
the consciously held values
or beliefs of individuals.
Assessment and selection of
candidates may be biased due
to well-known factors,
such as the halo effect,
homophily, homo sociality,
confirmation bias and so on.
In the case of
employment interviews,
implicit associations
and the interviewer may
have related to, for instance,
physical appearance, obesity,
race or gender are also some
of the factors known
to unintentionally
influenced the way applicants
are perceived and evaluated.
Research has in fact documented
that interviewers'
affective processes &
their subjective
impressions during
job interviews actually
prevail over applicants'
qualifications & skills.
Such treatment of applicants
may not only have
ethical and social
consequences discarding
the most qualified candidates
based on traits that
are unrelated to the job
position, it may also
have among other
things reputational
and financial repercussions
for the hiring organization.
