Many companies now use artificial intelligence to make hiring decisions. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
Benefits
- Time efficient
- Cuts down on the time required to arrange for interviews, this can also be activated at a short notice
- Mitigates traveling times required for interviewers and interviewees
- Allow quick hiring
- Money efficient
- Saves money of both the employers and the applicants, otherwise spent on arranging things and traveling to the venue
- Lesser workload for administration
- Candidates can appear for interviews in a relaxed environment
- May help overcome bias
- Can create records and prevent repetitive tasks
- Make a better match of requirements and qualifications
Drawbacks
- There is great likelihood of qualified candidates being rejected
- Judging body language and facial expression is not possible for machines
- Cannot judge emotional intelligence and resourcefulness of applicants
- Lack human touch
- Technical glitches and data theft
Although the advent of automation has made choosing the correct candidate for jobs convenient, there are some drawbacks of this system which cannot be overlooked. Therefore, it is imperative to evaluate whether the pros of this system exceed its cons.
Undeniably, the self-driven system of talent acquisition has helped make things uncomplicated for recruiters as they are spared of the daunting tasks of planning interviews, arranging resources and venues, and creating a synchronization between different departments to allow a smooth flow of events. This up-to-date medium can perform all functions single-handedly without needing a special space for evaluating job applicants.
Nevertheless, despite this state-of-the art mechanism offering unprecedented convenience, its utility is extremely limited to selecting people for jobs that are straightforward; it is likely to misjudge the depth of experience of aspirants by virtue of operating on the basis of certain algorithms. To corroborate, surgeons and pilots can only be assessed on the basis of their successful surgeries and flying hours respectively with negligible errors and flaws.
Moreover, this medium is incapable of accurately examining soft and interpersonal skills because even the most advanced systems lack emotional intelligence, and thus, can never evaluate ability to communicate effectively, mental resilience, and persuasive acumen, the critical traits of capable professionals today. Several large hotel chains had to embrace the traditional system of interviewing prospective workers after the AI-assisted recruitment system failed to hire qualified people. These aspects assertively highlight that rewards offered by automated recruiting systems are scanty, while there are detriments galore.
In hindsight, notwithstanding the benefits like the ease of operations, the AI-driven hiring process is severely restricted to selecting employees for simple tasks, by virtue of its inability to determine critical traits of job applicants; thus it should be used restrictively.