Responsible AI Series Part IV: Product Applications

by Sanjeet Hajarnis, Engineering Director at Eightfold.ai

As part of our series of blog posts on Responsible practices in AI, we would like to deep dive on the following aspects for part IV,

Right Products & Analytics

Candidate Masking

Employment processes are a sensitive area in which societal biases, conscious and unconscious, can foster unfair stereotypes and preferences in selecting candidates. Recruitment processes that are not effective in ensuring fairness can lead to biased hiring outcomes that sustain and amplify imbalances found in society.

Frequently, sensitive, protected information about candidates are identifiable throughout the recruitment stages. Resumes might convey sensitive information about the candidate (such as race, gender, age etc.) that can unintentionally impact the way recruiters make decisions. Additionally, similarity bias in historically imbalanced industries can result in recruiters unintentionally penalizing the disadvantaged groups.

To mitigate these risks, a core functionality of Eightfold’s Talent Intelligence Platform is candidate masking. Candidate masking is the process through which we strip sensitive information from a resume that does not affect a prospective employer’s ability to evaluate the candidate’s skills and suitability for a particular job posting. Particularly when displaying a candidate to the recruiter, the following information can be masked:

Table 1: Types of information that can be masked from resumes during candidate masking.

Customers may configure to additionally mask the information in Table 2.

Table 2: Additional types of information masked from resumes during candidate masking (optionally)

Masking is performed using algorithms that intelligently capture and mask the aforementioned aspects of the profile. We measure and monitor the performance of these algorithms to ensure that they perform effectively across a variety of types of resumes.

Figure 1: Candidate masking in the products. Candidates are displayed in a way that only displays information relevant to selection as configured by the customer.

Through candidate masking, Eightfold’s Talent Intelligence Platform minimizes a recruiter’s ability to identify and make decisions based on stereotypes. We provide a candidate profile to the recruiter for evaluating job fitness based on fair and objective factors related to the job description. Candidate masking helps empower recruiters to focus on the skills and experiences of candidates that are relevant for the job in order to make strong hiring decisions for the success of their company.

Diversity Dashboard

Beyond candidate masking, the product allows customers to track, review and analyze human users’ aggregate usage statistics through each stage of the hiring process via the Diversity Dashboard.

The Diversity Dashboard enables employers to analyze differences in pipelines across various breakdowns.

Figure 2: Diversity Dashboard displaying Gender composition at each stage of the hiring process.

Personalized Recommendations

On the other side of the hiring process are the individuals who are searching for jobs. Studies [REF] have shown that women are statistically less likely to apply to jobs they are qualified for than men. These differences can have a significant impact on underrepresentation of protected groups in certain industries. To combat such disparities, we provide potential applicants with an objective analysis of their fit with a job to encourage qualified applicants to apply.

Figure 3: Card displayed to potential applicants depicting a “strong match” between a candidate and position.

Additionally, by providing a personalized list of open jobs ranked by compatibility, we further help mitigate self selection biases among potential applicants. This allows each job opportunity to reach the strongest potential applicants, and increase the likelihood of a diverse applicant pool for recruitment.

Figure 4: Ranked list of open positions supplied to individuals searching for jobs.