Americans Don’t Want AI To Decide If They Get A Job Or Not

Job seeking has long been filled with uncertainty. Proving you’re the perfect person for a certain role can involve weeks of studying, practice interviews, perfecting your resumé, and some good old-fashioned crossing of fingers.

But increasingly over the past few years, there’s been a new twist to the hiring tale: the use of AI.

From a company’s perspective, hiring takes time, money and effort. Sorting through hundreds of resumés, doing initial interviews and personality sense checks can mean recruitment staff being distracted from higher level work.

Companies have been harnessing AI’s power to screen resumés, undertake one-way video interviews or use chatbots in order to tackle a large hiring pool.

It’s unsurprising that the Society for Human Resource Management found in 2022 that nearly one in three organizations reported using automation or artificial intelligence to support their HR-related activities, including recruitment and hiring.

But AI processes aren’t without their drawbacks – and it turns out that workers have some major reservations about their impact on job seeking.

What do workers think?

Pew Research Center asked 11,000 Americans about their attitudes towards AI and the workplace – and a majority said they would not want to apply for a job where AI helps make hiring decisions.

But when it comes to reviewing applications – as opposed to a human decision around the ultimate hire – there was a bit more optimism.

Americans, largely, are unconvinced an AI-driven hiring process is for them – 66 percent say they would not want to apply for a job with an employer that uses AI to help make them make hiring decisions, while 32 percent would want to do so.

A majority of Americans – 71 percent in total – told Pew they are opposed to AI making a final hiring decision. Just 7 percent favor this, and 22 percent say they aren’t sure.

When it comes to using AI to review job applications, 41 percent said they are opposed to employers doing this, while 28 percent are in favor of it. There was a high level of people who aren’t sure what they think about this at 30 percent.

It’s notable that the study shows there are many workers who don’t feel confident to come down with an answer on either side of AI’s involvement in elements of recruitment. They simply don’t know enough yet.

That in itself highlights how new the awareness is around AI involvement in hiring, despite the fact it’s been used in various ways for years.

Indeed, the research also found that the more familiar with this technology people are, the more supportive they are of its use: 43 percent of those who’ve heard a lot about using AI in the hiring process support it being used to review applications – compared with 37 percent who’ve heard a little, and 21 percent who’ve heard nothing at all.

Human touch

One big concern coming out of this research is the “human touch” – like whether AI can pick up how good a choice a person is. Is it really possible to know if a worker is the perfect fit if you’ve only had a bare minimum of human contact with them?

A total of 43 percent of people told Pew that they believed AI judgments about who might work well with coworkers could actually be worse than the judgments humans make.

A further serious topic of discussion is whether hidden biases might come into play via the use of AI. Most Americans (79 percent) say that bias and unfair treatment based on a job applicant’s race or ethnicity is already a problem in US recruitment.

Of the 32 percent of Americans who told Pew they would want to apply for a job where AI is used during recruitment, the most common reason was that they believed AI could be objective, fair, have little bias or treat everyone equally.

The topic of potential bias in AI is a major concern for workers, regulators and politicians.

For example, in 2018, it emerged Amazon scrapped an experimental AI recruiting tool it had been developing after it showed bias against women. This was because it was trained on resumés submitted to the company over a 10-year period, most of which came from men, Reuters reported at the time.

Though the company didn’t set out to perpetrate gender bias, it unknowingly found women’s resumés down-ranked because of the information it was feeding the tool.

It will be hard for jobseekers to avoid companies entirely who use AI during their recruitment process. But what people can do is call for transparency, asking the company what tools they are using and at what stage of the process.

They can also take some comfort from the fact that AI hiring is a concern at government level, as highlighted by Biden’s Blueprint for AI Rights.

And there are still jobs out there that are worth braving this new world of recruitment for. Here are three: take a look at The Hill’s Job Board for more.

Communications Director, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Washington

This Communications Director role – which offers a hybrid schedule – is aimed at an energetic communications professional who can work on developing and implementing FAIR’s messaging, media and communications strategy around advancing immigration reform. For full details, see here.

Director of Communications, USTelecom, Washington

USTelecom says its mission is to advance broadband’s future, helping to connect communities and encourage investment. It’s looking for a Director of Communications who will break down complex policies into powerful messages, engage directly with news outlets and write clear and effective communications. Details on qualifications needed are available here.

Government and Public Sector, Data Analytics Solution Lead, Senior Manager, EY, McLean

This Data Analytics Solution Lead job is aimed at someone who understands how important data engineering and analytics are, and wants to help EY’s clients navigate that world. This sector of EY provides a range of consulting and audit services to help clients within Federal, State, local and education areas. The ideal hire must be able to listen and understand the question and develop and deliver clear insights. Full details can be found here.

Discover your next big work opportunity via The Hill Job Board today