Tuesday 17 May 2022 03:52 PM AI is better at hiring staff than human bosses, study finds  trends now

Artificial intelligence (AI) is better at hiring staff than human bosses, but companies still don't trust it in the recruitment process, a new study finds.

Researchers in London have conducted a review of previous studies that assessed the effectiveness of AI as a recruitment tool. 

They found AI is 'equal to or better than' human recruiters when it comes to hiring people who go on to perform well at work. 

Although AI had limited abilities in predicting employee outcomes after they were hired, AI is 'fairer' and marked a substantial improvement over humans, they reveal.

AI also boosts the 'fill-rate' for open positions and is 'mostly better than humans' at improving diversity in the workplace. 

Fill rate refers to how many job positions a company has filled over a time period, compared to how many jobs are still open, waiting to be filled. 

The new study was conducted by researchers at the Inclusion Initiative at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Study author Grace Lordan at LSE said humans are 'plagued by cronyism and bias' when hiring people, meaning the best candidate doesn't always get the job they deserve. 

'It is time that humans hand over the hiring process to machines who do not have these tendencies,' Lordan said.

'Biases embedded in algorithms can be mitigated somewhat with more care from those writing them, and compliance folk, who do not have skin in the hiring process can monitor the process to abate any concerns on fairness.

'Let's progress AI in recruitment and workplace inclusivity at the same time.' 

As of 2019, 37 per cent of businesses had adopted AI to assist in the workplace decision-making processes, including recruitment, a previous study found. 

AI can be used in recruitment in several ways, such as searching through hundreds of CVs for a certain combination of keywords to narrow applicants down to those with the most relevant experience. 

Another example is the use of chatbots to conduct a preliminary interview with a candidate before he or she can meet their prospective human employer. 

For the study, the researchers reviewed a total of 22 studies that were all published between 2005 – around the time AI emerged in the workplace – and 2021.