Navigating ChatGPT in Recruitment
Challenges and Digital Solutions
90% of business leaders believe ChatGPT experience is a beneficial skill for job seekers. The application of generative artificial intelligence (AI) use continues to diversify, with more users using it in important facets of their lives. Within the business sector, recruitment has seen a great rise in job applicants’ use of ChatGPT due to the efficiency and convenience it offers. Although, this also presents several concerns and introduces new challenges for Human Resources Management. Let’s explore the emerging challenges faced by HRM and how they can be mitigated.
Enhanced Accessibility and Efficiency
Historically, organisations’ recruitment processes have favoured traditional methods, such as manual resume screening and in-person interviews, to deeply understand candidates’ skillset. This approach values human judgement and relies on personal interaction. However, due to the increase in job applicants using ChatGPT to aid them in the application process, it is growing increasingly difficult for HRM to effectively assess a candidate’s true skillset and personality. This shift has forced HRM to adapt their assessment methods to mitigate these challenges.
Authenticity and Integrity
A significant challenge associated with adapting the recruitment process involves preserving the key, historically effective strategies. Companies are generally hesitant to change time-tested methods that have a strong track record of success, making this task highly difficult. HRM can look to address this by removing redundant processes that can be entirely completed by AI such as the cover letter. They can balance the traditional aspects of hiring with new adaptations by leveraging digital technologies to assess candidate’s creativity skills through personality tests, using data-driven insights to reveal their soft skills.
Amazon’s Automated Hiring Tool
Companies have been driven to rethink their approach to talent acquisition. They have already started moving beyond degrees and job titles to focus more on candidates’ skillsets. Now they are looking at the best methods of integrating digital tools to aid their assessment of candidates’ soft skills. Amazon previously created its own AI tool to review job applicant’s resumes to find top applicants. The system allowed the company to learn key traits about candidates that could make them successful for roles.
Challenges of Integrating AI in Recruitment
While Amazon’s hiring tool helped the company to better understand candidates, they learnt the system was biased against female applicants and downgraded resumes that included terms like “women’s”. This example helps to show the potential pitfalls of integrating new digital solutions in the recruitment process. Many of these tools have not been fully researched and come with several issues such as stereotyping and discrimination. All AI systems are inherently biased, as they are created by designers who may inadvertently introduce societal biases in the systems. HRM should look to include additional methods of assessment when trying to uncover information about candidates’ soft skills and traits.
ChatGPT and AI Bias Mitigation Strategies
Companies can look to hold more in person assessments alongside an effective digital solution, to overcome any potential biases and effectively analyse candidates’ personal qualities. Brooke Weddle, partner at McKinsey & Company, states “as opposed to cover letters, which typically convey little information critical to the actual hiring decision, employers look hard at cultural fit and soft skills during the interview process.” So, companies can incorporate methods such as assigning skill and creativity based tasks to candidates during in-person interviews. This can help recruiters to find out how candidates are distinct from one another; a distinction ChatGPT cannot help applicants with.
Challenges of Skill Validation
As HRM find alternative ways to discover candidates’ unique traits, changes to their current processes, especially if constant, can potentially strain departments and lead to unforeseen costs. A company changing it processes to host more in-person interviews introduces several challenges such as re-skilling employees and restructuring job roles to accommodate for these changes. Potential costs to organisations can arise, ranging from expensing candidate’s travel, budgeting and time costs. Companies should aim to be agile in their changes due to the constantly evolving nature of technology.
AI Text Detection Tools
Organisations can look to fight fire with fire by using AI detection tools in the market or developing their own AI tool to mitigate the risks associated with job applicants using ChatGPT. OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, have developed their own AI detection tool called AI Text Classifier to help distinguish between human generated text and computer-generated text. This can help HRM to identify where candidates may have used Generative AI to help them write their resumes, cover letters and write-ups as part of the application process. There are several other highly utilised tools that companies can consider using, including GPTZero and Copyleaks.
AI Text Detection Tools: Concerns
There are several concerns over the efficacy of these tools. Detection tools for AI-generated text tend to fail, scoring below 80% of accuracy in a 2023 study. They have been found to find human-written documents as AI-generated (false positives) and often diagnose AI-generated texts as human-written (false negatives). The use of these systems may lower the efficiency of the hiring process, with the traditional method of using human assessment of resumes offering stable and trustworthy results in comparison. Research on this topic highlight the importance of using AI tools as a means to complement human assessment, rather than solely relying on it.
Finally, HRM must carefully consider how they can adapt to their hiring processes whilst using digital solutions. By integrating internal AI systems in the application process or using AI detection tools in the market, organisations can maintain efficiency in job hiring with the rise of ChatGPT use by applicants. But they must ensure that they do not allow for new biases to be introduced and lower the quality of their recruitment process.
