Using artificial intelligence in hiring to improve diversity
Automated systems designed for hiring a more diverse workforce can find candidates who may otherwise be overlooked due to health issues, gaps in employment or because they lack a degree or are from a non-traditional background. More employers are using new assessment methods to broaden the pool of candidates they hire from, amid a global skills and labour shortage and as they push to improve diversity, Grace Lordan, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at LSE, writes in a post for the Financial Times.
Using artificial intelligence when hiring staff can be efficient and lead to increasing diversity. But negative attitudes against AI can hold people back from benefiting from using the new technology, new research at London School of Economics shows.
A recent US study shows a majority oppose AI use in making final hiring decisions.
A systematic review of hiring indicates that using artificial intelligence methods outperform humans with respect to making efficient hiring decisions, increasing diversity of recruits and leading to the best performance in new hires, the LSE researchers write in LSE Business Review.
Due to these results, the LSE researchers recommend that AI be adopted in the contexts in which it has shown to outperform humans.
“However, we also recognise that due to the findings on negative perceptions towards AI, this may represent a barrier to adoption. In cases where AI is performing better than humans, there may still be emotional factors holding people back from embracing these new technologies.”
Referring to the present level of AI, the researchers write that when using AI, for example in hiring, the algorithm should be trained in the specific context such as job role and industry that it is used in.
“Although there are currently limits of AI prediction, there are also limits in humans’ ability to predict outcomes. For example, in our systematic review, when looking at predicting the future promotions of job candidates, despite its limited abilities, AI still performed better than humans.”
A recent study in the US by the Pew Research Centre shows that people are generally wary and uncertain of AI being used in hiring and assessing workers.
62% believe artificial intelligence will have a major impact on jobholders overall in the next 20 years, but far fewer think it will greatly affect them personally.
The Centre’s survey shows that a majority oppose AI use in making final hiring decisions by a 71%-7% margin, and a majority also opposes AI analysis being used in making firing decisions.
“Pluralities oppose AI use in reviewing job applications and in determining whether a worker should be promoted. Beyond that, majorities do not support the idea of AI systems being used to track workers’ movements while they are at work or keeping track of when office workers are at their desks.”
Yet there are instances where people think AI in workplaces would do better than humans. Pew Research says. 47% think AI would do better than humans at evaluating all job applicants in the same way, while a much smaller share – 15% – believe AI would be worse than humans in doing that.
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