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A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

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81–90 of 130 posts

Re: A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

#81

My brother has just finished a masters programme and is starting to apply for jobs, he's coming up against a lot of these. He's smart, motivated, very hard working, and has the necessary credentials on his CV, but when talking to him he's quite monotone and low energy. Because of this, he's failing these automated video interviews as he looks like he's not a "team player" or "personable". While interviewing practice…

> The software is sold as helping "remove bias"...

I read this as the software is sold as a fig leafs to wantobe rules who are pretty sure they have no cloths.

Re: A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

#82

Maybe an even better headline would be "A new obstacle to landing a job: getting approved by AI" Doesn't this same problem exist for anyone finding a job? It's probably even worse when you're looking and your 40 or 50 and even worse if you're changing careers. I'd bet AI drops anyone over the age of 40, almost certainly 50. I'm not saying "these darn kids have it so easy today" I'm sure it's not, but my 1/2 educated…

If they did that would be insta-lawsuit. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm

Re: A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

#84
post #81

My brother has just finished a masters programme and is starting to apply for jobs, he's coming up against a lot of these. He's smart, motivated, very hard working, and has the necessary credentials on his CV, but when talking to him he's quite monotone and low energy. Because of this, he's failing these automated video interviews as he looks like he's not a "team player" or "personable". While interviewing practice…

> The software is sold as helping "remove bias"... I read this as the software is sold as a fig leafs to wantobe rules who are pretty sure they have no cloths.

I'm amazed the lawsuits aren't already locked-and-loaded.

All you need to do is acquire the software, feed in a video clip of a male/female or white/black applicant saying the same things (maybe use deepfakes to ensure consistency in delivery), and if the score is one iota different, you've got the developer, at best, having to try to explain away a lot of ugly black-box logic, and at worst, a cut-and-dry discrimination case.

A human screener is probably somewhat biased too, but he's at least trained to provide a legally acceptable excuse for his choices.

Re: A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

#85
post #84
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The software is sold as helping "remove bias"... I read this as the software is sold as a fig leafs to wantobe rules who are pretty sure they have no cloths.

I'm amazed the lawsuits aren't already locked-and-loaded. All you need to do is acquire the software, feed in a video clip of a male/female or white/black applicant saying the same things (maybe use deepfakes to ensure consistency in delivery), and if the score is one iota different, you've got the developer, at best, having to try to explain away a lot of ugly black-box logic, and at worst, a cut-and-dry discriminat…

Who has the liability if the algorithm is found to be illegally biased? I assume it would be based on the contract (or perhaps there are other laws relating to having a service rendered illegally), but I wonder which way it goes

Re: A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

#86

I consult. When its remote, I sometimes recommend we have a person on the ground (at the customer plant) to coordinate and manage data. If they don't agree, I hire a graduate anyway and ask that a place be made in their office for them. Ultimately the client find them useful and they get hired on, because the client actually did need somebody to be expert in the new software. It's a responsibility to help young gradu…

Question for you. How do you find good fit for graduates in your niche/good candidates for the role? My experience consulting was that the spectrum of work I could be asked to do was so broad I'd have trouble, despite having a handful of junior engineer friends, feeling confident I could hand off work to them; let alone a graduate with enough locality to be onsite. (and despite wanting to, as well, I'd love to give t…

Sure. It generally goes like this: they think they want another Engineer, but what they/I need on site is a project coordinator/manager type. That's where they drag their heels on hiring somebody.

So I hire a Journalism or Business graduate, give them mentoring for the first month on-site, and being young and ambition they take off.

The principle thing in dealing with an Engineering organization (I tell them) is, when you don't understand what they're saying, say "I don't understand that. Can you elaborate?" Engineers generally love to explain their stuff. And it doesn't hurt to appear humble and eager either.

Anyway it works for what I've been doing (data migration, engineering data management, test fixture setup and deployment) since its more software configuration and vendor selection than it is technical Engineering. More a planning and coordination role. Especially since the departments I get injected into are already busy, and are glad to offload non-Engineering tasks.

It's a situation that's rich with opportunities to make yourself legitimately useful and productive. So the right candidate is not chosen so much by credentials, as skills in organizing, communicating and following up.

One very successful example had been a manager for an Americorp section, looking after 20+ young people as young as himself, and keeping them motiviated, supplied and supported. This person is now being groomed for a higher-level management position in the service company I introduced him into. I expect to see him as a Director or VP one day.

Btw, it doesn't hurt to have somebody at client companies that feels predisposed to look favorably on my services. Not only can I continue to get connected to whomever it takes to get a contract moving, I have a positive voice in their meeting rooms supporting us.

Re: A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

#87

Maybe an even better headline would be "A new obstacle to landing a job: getting approved by AI" Doesn't this same problem exist for anyone finding a job? It's probably even worse when you're looking and your 40 or 50 and even worse if you're changing careers. I'd bet AI drops anyone over the age of 40, almost certainly 50. I'm not saying "these darn kids have it so easy today" I'm sure it's not, but my 1/2 educated…

Hey, that opens a great business niche for face decoration kits that would add X% to your average interview score. /s

Re: A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

#88
This is why I am very skeptical when companies, especially tech companies, go running to Congress wanting more imported labor. They're ignoring qualified applicants left and right due to processes that are optimized to minimize the risk of ever making a bad hire even though it filters out lots of good hires. Fix your process before expecting laws to be changed to ameliorate the negatives of the process you chose.

Re: A new obstacle to landing a job after college: getting approved by AI

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do sound terrible and I hope to never encounter one, but my brother made a good point: the NHS get something like 12k applications per week, they have an average of 25k job openings each month. They apparently can't deal with that manually, which does make some sense. I personally think they _should_ handle it manually, and if the system breaks we should fix it in another way because this way sucks, but I'm not…

If a company isn’t willing or able to commit the appropriate resources to hiring, they should reduce their number of open positions, not look to technology to solve a self-created problem. Assuming they don’t have the resources to give people a proper interview and vet a candidate, can you imagine the situation once those that do pass actually encounter on the job? I’d never work at a place that makes such kinds of d…

I agree. The AI hype helps with drinking their koolaids and let's hope this will cease soon. I'm not saying that there aren't good problems to solve with AI, but adopting it so readily on people while it is not working properly and while it is amounts to experimenting on people which is a terrible thing to do. I'm not for the AI winter but for the the end of AI hype.
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