this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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AI hiring tools may be filtering out the best job applicants::As firms increasingly rely on artificial intelligence-driven hiring platforms, many highly qualified candidates are finding themselves on the cutting room floor.

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[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 82 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A business that relies on blackbox AI decision making, when dealing with people, cares not about being accurate or fair, and adopts technology on the fallacy / stupidity of appeal to novelty instead of analysing its overall impact.

IMO this practice should be forbidden.

[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

AI filtering has the promise of selecting good candidates very efficiently, due to pattern recognition on a level not immediately obvious to humans. Unfortunately no company is going to train their own hiring models, and good ones don't exist on the market. Everyone vaguely competent is chasing LLMs and image generation. Specialized, focused models are almost forgotten in the hype.

So they just go with a commercial "enterprise" tool which are as we all know utter shite. HR AI tools are even worse than your typical fake "AI".

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

There are two additional issues, related to each other:

  • opacity - most of the time you have no clue on what prompted the model to output one or another "decision"
  • responsibility - no matter how good or bad it is, software is not a moral agent, thus it should not be put in charge of decisions concerning human beings

Based on that I think that a better approach would be to use the AI model to create a filter, that can be analysed and tweaked by human beings, and then use that filter to select candidates. They won't do this though - because it screws with their "I did nothing!!! the ai did it!!" excuse to be unfair.

But the way that it is now, frankly? Better to ban it.

[–] frunch@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Damn, that's an angle i hadn't been considering--the "AI did it, not me!" accountability loophole. Air Canada was just attempting to pull that on a customer that was given wrong info by a customer service bot. They only managed to get Air Canada to make good on their offer for bereavement rates when they were taken to court. Thanks AI!

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[–] Nachorella@lemmy.sdf.org 68 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I hate how quickly "AI" has been adopted for tasks it is wholly incapable of doing well, merely fast.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 34 points 6 months ago (2 children)

This isn’t even a new thing. They just attached “AI” as a tagline for attention.

They’ve been using computers to automate going through resumes for eons at this point.

[–] jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

I don't even really like people using AI to describe LLMs, it's not really an AI. It has no agency, it's basically a really complex copy and paste machine.

Ask Jeeves was better.

[–] Twitches@lemm.ee 7 points 6 months ago

How was ask Jeeves so good for such a short time

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[–] greenskye@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

It could be new. I'm sure there are loads of new start ups offering shitty 'AI' powered solutions that crappy c-suites are switching to because of buzzwords.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

It’s even more annoying that this was so predictable. Big money wants AI to compete with workers do bad that they use it for exactly that even when it isn‘t capable. It doesn‘t matter if they lose productivity as long as it‘s a pain in the ass for you and me.

[–] nodsocket@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Survival of the fittest. Those companies will either change their ways or be overtaken by the others.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 4 points 6 months ago

How much damage will they do in the mean time, though?

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 63 points 6 months ago (2 children)

My experience in the past twenty years on both the looking and hiring end is that ultimately I don't think AI changes anything.

You've just replaced humans in HR that have no fucking clue what to look for and relied on algorithms and key word searches to filter out the good people to just going to directly to algorithms that will do the same shit job.

[–] smackjack@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

At my job, it used to be the department managers who did interviews and made hiring decisions, but then they changed it so that HR would handle all of that. Ever since then, they've gone and hired the absolute shittiest people you can imagine. HR has no idea how to hire people or what to look for. They even hired a sex offender to work in an area where children are likely to be present because they never bothered to do a background check.

[–] erwan@lemmy.ml 11 points 6 months ago

Yes, we've seen so called "experts" telling your personality from your handwriting, or stupid personality tests... HR sure can find convoluted ways to reject random applications.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 44 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I am on the other end of this. As an employer, job boards are now essentially useless. Worst of all, we pay per profile engaged. In order for us to verify that the profile is even tangentially a match, we have to engage, but the new algorithms are only providing poor matches. It used to be that we would pay per posting and we could engage with every profile that responded AND every profile that matched our keywords, at no extra costs (this shit costs over $10k per year).

The market is ripe for a competitor that offers services equivalent to what we had nearly twenty years ago.

[–] greenskye@lemm.ee 17 points 6 months ago

Enshittification is a rot that ruins everything for everyone. Even the rich people trying richer will just end suffering from the total collapse of functioning society in the end.

Capitalism is a mental illness.

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago

Every service is getting shittier with AI. They all suck. Hell, even autocorrect is worse.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Why not skip those companies and put a listing on your own company website? I feel like a big source of the issue is companies outsourcing this kind of thing to other companies. You are going to need to do some work on your own at some point.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Our default is Dice, Indeed, Facebook. Twatter, Mastodon, and our website. We're too small and specialized for the website to work. If you know about us, chances are you know one of our people at which point it's an "in network" referral.

EDIT: To be fair, nothing but the job boards and referrals work. Facebook, Twatter, LinkedIn, etc, are a waste of time and money.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 months ago

To an extent, unless they are hiring a very large number of people, it’s likely going to get them less applicants.

As someone looking for a job right now, the idea of having to think of every company that might need a software developer, to go check their website, is paralyzing. And that’s not even taking into account companies on the other side of the country looking for a remote worker, that I’ve never heard of.

[–] oakey66@lemmy.world 42 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I am a seasoned professional that has over a decade in my field with very solid experience to match. And yet, I am simply getting either no response or a decline altogether. During Covid, I interviewed for over 30 positions. Some were promising but others I declined. I’m hearing crickets right now. It’s wild.

[–] Patches@sh.itjust.works 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

I was called by 3 different jobs (of the 50+ I've applied to) this week that I need a cover letter otherwise my resume goes straight in the trash. Which is wild because I know nobody is handwriting letters.

So off to generate a ChatGPT Cover Letter Bot I went. 🤞

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Seriously? CVs are just dumb, I don’t understand why they are even still an option to submit, never mind being required. I would expect most to just ignore them since it’s literally just fluff.

[–] Patches@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

They are an option because they are self perpetuating just like leet code.

I wrote one when I got my last job so I only look at resumes that have them.

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[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I have the same qualifications as the descriptions and even exactly what the job is looking for and don't hear back. Some other jobs ask for interviews with 1 or 2 similar qualifications. It's nuts.

[–] MataVatnik@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Yeah, I will literally fit the exact description for a job, and then some, and not a fucking word. Insane. Like who the fuck are you looking for.

[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I had one that I fit word for word but I have an AS and not a BS. My father in law works for the company for 22 years and puts in for it under his name as an endorsement. If I get hired he gets a bonus if I stay for a year. Nothing. Not even a phone interview. So dumb. And my degree is not a technical degree.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 months ago

The schooling requirement for things like software development are getting out of hand too. I’ve been automatically rejected for junior positions because I lack a BS. I have 10+ years of experience doing exactly what they are looking for.

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[–] Bonskreeskreeskree@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Same. Not a single interview in the past 500 apps.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I’ve applied to hundreds, I’ve got a single interview. The only others calling me have been recruiters.

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[–] ThePantser@lemmy.world 36 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

LinkedIn used to say how many people applied to a job. Some jobs I would see said 1000s of applicants now they changed it and it says "over 100" that's an indicator that the job market is shit now. Companies have to use something to filter that many applications.

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But sholdnt that product actually WORK? If its not working, then why pay for the product?

[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

From the perspective of the decision maker it does "work". It rejects a % of candidates in such a way they can pretend it's objective rather than random. Imho, just randomly selecting 100 out of 2000 for human review would actually be more fair and give better results.

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[–] Veedem@lemmy.world 29 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I’m unfortunately in this world. Every application involves me scanning the job description and then trying to take key words and change up my skills section to try to match enough to catch the eye of an algorithm.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 19 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Sounds like we need AI-generated resumes

[–] Veedem@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They exist in some form or another. None of them free.

[–] r00ty@kbin.life 7 points 6 months ago

So what you're saying is that AI is the new Lawyers. When both sides use it, nothing improves but the lawyers/AI creators get richer.

[–] Patches@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 months ago

You can already use Chat GPT to generate Cover Letters. It can't be that large a leap to do the same for Resumes.

It's all a fuckin nightmare. AI will be death of us all.

[–] Fixbeat@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 months ago

You can ask chatgpt to rewrite your resume taking the job description into account.

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago (3 children)

There are services that do exactly that and they work. You tell it what type of job you’re applying by to and it tailors your CV to get through the systems so you get seen.

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[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 26 points 6 months ago (2 children)

My resume is shit. I refuse to put things on it just to fluff it up. I also never apply for jobs. I just put my resume up and people call me (I work in an industry that supports this behavior). Every resume I’ve ever submitted never got a reply.

[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I’m in the film industry. My resume is on IMDb. With the strikes last year I started looking for jobs outside the film world and made myself a resume and updates my LinkedIn page. I’ve been looking for over 3 months and so far no out of the industry replies, but I got two network studios that are talking to me for freelance work…

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I got my job now because I have a lot of years working on older systems. This makes me a good candidate for transitioning old to new code. Don’t forget to list your old skills if you’re good at them.

I don’t know your industry, so bear with me, but if you can do something like manually splice film well, it’s not bad to mention it in a general resume online. You never know who will hit you up just because they did that back in the day too.

That’s the thing I like about my online resume vs my catered resume. I can provide more insight into my past to show I’m able to adapt well. I don’t usually mention, in the catered one, that I used to work at a fashion magazine because that was way back in 2007, and I’ve got more impressive positions than “junior developer,” but a lot of people ask about it in job interviews. A lot of wild stories.

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[–] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Curious to know what industry that is.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 9 points 6 months ago

Software. As someone who has been on the hiring end, I am bombarded with resumes. 90% of them are people in foreign countries who are most likely not even real people. The majority of resumes use the exact same template. When I do eventually find that looks real, I typically notice that they just list every single acronym in the book. Someone who focuses on nodejs and react with less than 20 years of experience is probably not going to have in-depth knowledge of ASP, PHP, JSP, Etc. So I get very skeptical, and often throw those in the trash. Sometimes they just copy and paste the requirements of my job posting and put that into their skills. At one job I even put some fake technologies in the posting just to see if anyone claimed to know it. Quite a few resumes had that technology listed.

When I put my résumé on a job site like dice or indeed, for example, employers search me out. It’s usually the person who would be directly above me, and not someone from human resources. I write my résumé for those people. I don’t list stuff I don’t wanna work in, I don’t list stuff that I don’t have extensive knowledge in. I’ve tried that game before, and all it did was embarrass me in interviews.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If a company uses AI tools without thinking, it should bear the consequences. Regardless if the AI fcks up hiring processes or hands out free money to customers like air Canada did.

[–] TheFriar@lemm.ee 7 points 6 months ago

I thought air Canada bot gave out wrong info to the customer, who the company then said wasn’t entitled to the rebate program the bot told the customer was a thing, so the customer had to sue them for the extra money the bot told the customer to spend. There was ANOTHER AI fuckup by aircanada? Lol

[–] mjhelto@lemm.ee 6 points 6 months ago

At this point, AI seems like a silly gimmick to these companies. We're a stones throw away from the scene in South Park with Funnybot 5000 and the movie execs drilling it for hours for movie ideas.

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