Jan. 19, 2023 "Want a job? You'll have to convince our AI bot first": Today I found this article by Laura McQuillan on CBC:
Ever carefully crafted a job application for a role you're certain that you're perfect for, only to never hear back?
There's a good chance no one ever saw your application
— even if you took the internet's advice to copy-paste all of the skills from the job description.
Employers, especially large companies,
are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to quickly whittle down applicants into shortlists to help make hiring decisions.
One of the most widely used AI tools is an applicant tracking system (ATS),
which can filter and rank candidates' resumes against an employer's criteria before a human recruiter looks at the best matches.
And the systems are getting smarter:
some AI companies claim their platforms can not only pinpoint the most qualified candidate,
but also predict which one is most likely to excel in a given role.
"The first thing workers have got to understand is:
Nobody is looking at your resume.
You have to run the gauntlet of the AI before you get seen [by a recruiter],"
says Joseph Fuller, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School.
While AI hiring tools can save time and money for businesses when all they want to do is fill a job,
experts caution that the platforms can overlook qualified candidates
— and even introduce new biases into hiring processes
if they're not carefully used.
Meanwhile, human job seekers are usually in the dark about exactly
which AI tools are being used
and how their algorithms work,
prompting frustrated searches for advice on how to "beat" recruitment software
— much of it only scratching the surface.
AI can 'hide' prospective workers
Last year, Fuller co-authored research into "hidden workers"
— applicants who are overlooked by companies due to their hiring practices,
including their use of AI tools.
The researchers interviewed more than 2,250 executives across the United States, United Kingdom and Germany.
They found more than 90 per cent of companies were using tools like ATS to initially filter and rank candidates.
But they often weren't using it well.
Sometimes, candidates were scored against
bloated job descriptions filled with
unnecessary
and inflexible criteria,
which left some qualified candidates "hidden" below others the software deemed a more perfect fit.
Depending how the AI was configured,
it could down-rank or filter out candidates due to factors such as
a gap in their career history,
or their lack of a university degree,
even when the role didn't require a post-secondary education.
"Ninety-plus per cent of companies just acknowledge,
'We know that this process excludes qualified people,'"
Fuller told CBC News.
Those overlooked candidates included
immigrants,
veterans,
people with disabilities,
caregivers
and neurodiverse people,
among others, he added.
The researchers urged employers to write new job descriptions,
and to configure their AI to include candidates whose skills and experiences met a role's core requirements,
rather than excluding them based on other criteria.
The new rules of (AI) hiring
The U.S. government has issued guidance to employers about the potential for automated hiring software
to discriminate against candidates with disabilities
— even when the AI claims to be "bias-free."
And from April of this year, employers in New York City will have to tell candidates and employees when they use AI tools in hiring and promotion
— and audit those technologies for bias.
While Canada's federal government has its own AI use policy,
there are no rules or guidance for other employers,
although legislation currently before Parliament would require creators and users of "high-impact" AI systems to adopt
harm and bias-mitigation measures
to mitigate harm and bias
(details about what is considered "high-impact" AI haven't yet been spelled out)..
So for now, it's up to employers and their hiring teams to
understand how their AI software works
— and any potential downsides.
"I advise HR practitioners they have to look into and have open conversations with their vendors:
'OK, so what's in your system?
What's the algorithm like?
… What is it tracking?
What is it allowing me to do?"
said Pamela Lirio, an associate professor of international human resources management at the Université de Montréal.
Lirio, who specializes in new technologies, says it's also important to question
who built the AI
and whose data it was trained on,
pointing to the example of Amazon,
which in 2018 scrapped its internal recruiting AI tool
after discovering it was biased against female job applicants.
The system had been trained on the resumes of past applicants
— who were, overwhelmingly, men
— so the AI taught itself to down-rank applicants whose resumes mentioned
competing in women's sports leagues
or graduating from women's colleges.
As AI becomes smarter
and more attuned to the kinds of candidates
an employer likes,
based on who they've hired in the past,
companies run the risk of replicating Amazon's mistake,
says Susie Lindsay, counsel at the Law Commission of Ontario who has researched the potential regulation of AI in Canada.
"If you quite simply are going to use a hiring tool for looking at resumes
— or even look at a tool for your existing employees to decide who to promote
— and you're looking at who's been successful to date,
you're … not giving the opportunity for people who don't fit that exact model to potentially advance,"
Lindsay said.
Can you actually 'beat' hiring bots?
Do a web search for "how to beat ATS" and you'll find thousands of results,
including from professional resume writers
and online tools
offering tips to help stuff your resume with the right keywords
to get past the AI
and onto a recruiter's desk.
But keywords are only one of many data points that increasingly-advanced AI systems use.
Others include the names of companies you've worked for in the past,
how far into your career you are,
and even how far you live from the organization you're applying at.
"With a proper AI system that's able to
understand the context of the skill
and the relationships between the skills,
[keyword-stuffing] is just not as fruitful as it used to be,"
says Morgan Llewellyn, chief data scientist at recruiting technology company Jobvite.
Instead of trying to fool the algorithm,
experts recommend
applying for jobs that fit the
skills,
knowledge
and experience
you really do have
— keeping in mind that a human always makes the final decision.
"Even if you put this keyword, OK, well, what have you done?
What was your job function,
job title
that you've done in the past?"
says Robert Spilak, vice-president at ATS provider TalentNest.
"You should meet the requirements [of the role].
If you don't meet any of those, then of course, [a] human or some automation will filter you out."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/recruitment-ai-tools-risk-bias-hidden-workers-keywords-1.6718151May 28, 2025 "Her job interview was with an AI bot. It was odd": This video was on CBC:
15 hours ago NewsDuration 2:10
Companies are using AI hiring bots to
screen,
shortlist
and talk to
job candidates.
Advocates say the technology frees up human workers from tedious tasks,
but some applicants say it adds confusion to the process,
and there are concerns about HR job losses.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6776961
One interview was supposed to be 30 min, and then it went to 1 hr.
The candidate had to end the interview.
Jun. 1, 2025 "An AI bot might be asking the questions at your next job interview": Today I found this article by Charlotte LePage on CBC:
When Wafa Shafiq realized her upcoming job interview would be conducted by an artificial intelligence bot, she thought: Why not?
"I thought it'd be really cool. I wanted to try it," said Shafiq.
Alex, an AI bot powered by software company Aprioria, interviewed the 26-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., for a marketing position at a retirement insurance agency.
It asked her about herself and her experience for 30 minutes.
It acknowledged her responses
and complimented them
before asking a follow up question.
"I was shocked that it was asking such good follow up questions,"
Shafiq told CBC News.
"My expectations had been lower."
While some companies are turning to artificial intelligence to
streamline their recruitment processes,
some job candidates are concerned about
how they're being evaluated
and losing the chance to connect with recruiters.
This technology is still in the early phase, says Mike Shekhtman, senior regional director at Canadian employment agency Robert Half.
"As the technology improves,
we will continue to see perhaps an acceleration."
'People thought we were crazy'
Ribbon, an AI-interviewer software company,
is among the Canadian companies
to have seen an opportunity in this market.
"A year ago, people thought we were crazy," Arsham Ghahramani, Ribbon's CEO, said in an interview.
In nine months, Ribbon has amassed 400 customers who now use its bot to conduct interviews.
Ghahramani and his team spent more than a year
building
and training
their AI
using publicly available interviews
and voice datasets.
They wanted their AI to
show the right emotion
and ask the right questions,
he said.
But some candidates would prefer a human recruiter.
Missing the human touch
Maureen Green, a health technology consultant, was approached to do an interview for a position in a Canadian health-care company that uses AI to direct patient calls.
She was told the interview would be done by the company's own AI bot.
At first, Green, who lives in Vancouver, said she was impressed by the system, finding it spoke and acted similarly to a human.
"It really did feel like a conversation
and it felt like it was listening."
But what was scheduled to be a 30-minute interview ended up going for more than an hour,
as the AI kept asking follow up questions
and showed no signs of drawing the interview to an end.
Not knowing what else to do, Green said she thanked the AI interviewer for its time.
"I said: 'I'm so sorry, but it was wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much for the opportunity,' and so it ended."
Green thought she had done well in the interview, but she never heard back.
"I had been left feeling taken advantage of because …
I put a lot of effort into this interview
and really took it seriously,
but I also get the feeling that it's being trained by talking to people,"
she said.
"It can be done well, I'm sure, but this wasn't it."
Shafiq shared the sentiment. She entered her interview with curiosity and some skepticism.
The email she received to schedule the interview didn't mention AI — she only found out after looking into it herself. And she didn't get a follow up after the interview either.
She thought it was "cool" that she could
schedule the interview at any time of the day, even in the middle of the night,
and was impressed by the few glitches she experienced
— it only had difficulty answering some of her questions.
But she wished she had more information on how her performance would be evaluated.
"If companies do use AI for recruitment,
there's such an opportunity for communicating what the benefits of it are,"
Shafiq said.
"Sending a message beforehand to be like:
'This is what to expect,
this is how to prepare.'"
Although Shafiq is open to doing more AI interviews, she said she missed the human connection she usually gets with regular interviews.
"There's no small talk,
there was nothing personal
and I wasn't able to really tell if my answers were landing or not."
Is it a replacement for human recruiters?
Job interviews done by AI agents allow for much more flexibility
in hiring internal roles
and can accelerate the process, said Elena McGuire, director of people and special projects at Thrive Career Wellness, a Toronto-based HR consulting company.
The company has several positions open at once and they hire internationally.
They use Ribbon,
which allows candidates to choose an interview time that works for them
and to interview in French for bilingual positions.
McGuire said it allowed the company to cut down thousands of applicants and hire six new employees.
"It's really not meant to replace us HR folk,
but help us."
McGuire also said that the company's hiring decisions aren't made by AI.
Ribbon summarizes interviews
and gives scores based on the company's requirements,
allowing recruiters to decide whether or not to move ahead with the candidate.
"They're [companies] looking at ways to
not lose any beat
and not miss out on candidates,"
said Shekhtman, of employment agency Robert Half.
"But that comes with a tremendous amount of caution as well,"
he added,
to ensure AI agents don't overlook qualified candidates
or spotlight unqualified ones
by focusing too much on technicalities.
But companies will ultimately leverage any tool that will help them streamline their processes,
especially if their resources are waning,
said Shekhtman.
"If you don't embrace [the technology],
you're going to get run over by it."
AI interviews 'a punchline'
When it comes to being interviewed by AI, Terri Griffith, Keith Beedie chairholder in innovation and entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, said she hasn't heard yet "a candidate be excited."
She said AI is being used by both recruiters and applicants.
"This is a punchline to a joke that goes:
'I used my AI to apply for the job,
they used AI to review my application
… now we're having an [AI] interview.'"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/artificial-intelligence-bot-job-interview-1.7546123
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