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The computers rejecting job applications

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#211

Post by learc83 »

I’ve worked in the HR tech space and we integrated with all of the big applicant tracking systems.

Many of them have screening questions. So you can ask something like “can you lift 50 lbs?” And set it up so answering no will screen the candidate out. But even in that case recruiters and hiring managers will usually still look at the candidate anyway.

There are also 3rd party addons that will score candidates, and resume parsers that will let recruiters search resumes for keywords.

But as far as I know there are no widely used AI solutions that will actually flat out reject candidates with no human intervention.

Even if it worked, the risk is too great that your model will start over rejecting people from protected classes and no one will notice until you’re hit with a lawsuit.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#212

Post by jgalt212 »

Radim wrote: post #111
kleiba wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: Pymetrics has hired a lot of former C64 game programmers.

Is that a reference to the infamous C64 Summer / Winter Games? Where you had to twiddle your joystick as fast as you can? Fascinating that should carry over into the 21st century hiring process.

Wasn't that the game mechanics for the sprint event in Summer Games? Diving was the best in that.

I did really enjoy surfing in California Games.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#213

Post by xyzelement »

JustARandomGuy wrote: post #90

Related story: I applied for a position with United Airlines a few months ago. I started the job application, then stopped in the middle for whatever reason. United’s job system emailed me at 9 PM a reminder to continue my application, and I completed it less than a half hour later. A half hour after that (just after 10 PM) United emailed me a rejection notice. So either some United recruiter was working late (I’m in…

Don't know if this is the case with United but I experienced a few companies where the first round of recruiting defense was in India - so it's possible someone got your app in the middle of their workday.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#214

Post by xyzelement »

londons_explore wrote: post #19

I wonder if it's possible to get the job applicants to evaluate each other? That way you have a process that automatically scales to the number of applicants you have. Exactly how to structure it so it can't be gamed/subverted is tricky, but you might imagine some team activity where the team does a task together, and then each person in the team is asked to so some kind of review of the other people in the team. If…

>> I wonder if it's possible to get the job applicants to evaluate each other?

I can't tell if this is the stupidest idea or brilliant.

On one hand you're saying "take a bunch of people we don't know are qualified to work here and empower them to make our hiring decisions" which sounds dumb.

But on the other hand, if people chosen through this process do well, you should go back and hire those who "hired" them as managers :)

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#215

Post by ionwake »

dcolkitt wrote: post #36

The next logical step would be to train an adversarial AI against the hiring AI. You'd have the system generate your resume and application to maximize your chances. Then the hiring AI would need to be re-trained to account for this. And so on. In the far future, this feedback loop creates an economy where every job application is total gibberish. No human can possibly explain why their resume is a recipe for carne a…

I just wanted to say I loved this comment, thanks. Subbed.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#216

Post by indymike »

learc83 wrote: post #211

I’ve worked in the HR tech space and we integrated with all of the big applicant tracking systems. Many of them have screening questions. So you can ask something like “can you lift 50 lbs?” And set it up so answering no will screen the candidate out. But even in that case recruiters and hiring managers will usually still look at the candidate anyway. There are also 3rd party addons that will score candidates, and re…

Most of the AI I've seen is really just a database query dressed up with a HAL-9000 eyeball camera or something. A good example is a license expiration date. It says it expired four years ago. problem is that candidate data is largely parsed from randomly formatted resume files, so it's not that accurate and as a result, the date from the college graduation ended up in the license field.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#217

Post by clagio »

SharpeDidntFoul wrote: post #142

You can pay about $250 for someone to optimize your resume with certain key words, punctuation, and formatting choices to make it through these systems. I did this and it worked. I was going for entry level finance roles in tech and finance. I went to a top 40 finance program, interned at Morgan Stanley, a hedge fund, and a respectable incubator, but had a hard time getting replies to my job applications. I used all…

I did something similar, and for me also was definitely worth it. I collected data over a full year of applications, and in addition to the updated cv (from fecak here's on HN), I also started to contact recruiter directly on Linkedin. For the same number of applications (before and after the new cv) I had 11 times more interviews than before

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#218

Post by dimitrios1 »

nitrogen wrote: post #123
dimitrios1 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always viewed staying up with the latest tools, technologies, and practices as part of my job. I've also found that the people who tend to not do this or display a similar sentiment you touched on with your comment, it's because you have carved out a large enough amount of success or niche with what you are working with. Am I reading into this too far?

The breadth of the industry makes it completely impossible to keep up with everything. I started typing out a list, but the list would be impossibly long.

I agree that it is impossible to keep up with everything. I am more viewing it from a prospective employability position and safeguarding my future interests. I may do very well writing apps in containers with traditional load balancers, but I very well better learn some Serverless and JAMStack type patterns as well, as a completely random example.

It's part of the filtering process to determine what subset you want to target, but learn something new as often as you can. The bonus I've learned over time is the more paradigms, tools, and technologies I learn and practice configuring and launching sample apps or solving simple challenges with, the more they all start to look and feel the same.

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#219

Post by LocalH »

ben509 wrote: post #208
LocalH wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's gonna monitor that AI?

It made a strangely compelling argument that it would be fine if it forked off a subprocess to monitor itself.

But it also has to fork off a subprocess to hire that subprocess from a pool of randomly generated subprocesses

Re: The computers rejecting job applications

#220

Post by Nacdor »

curiousllama wrote: post #40

I was part of a very in-depth evaluations of both Pymetrics & HireVue for a large company recently (2 different evals, among others). Some interesting things we observed: (1) It was not clear to us, with any level of certainty, whether either tool did anything more useful than filter out people who don't want to take the test / don't trust "AI". (2) It was not clear to us, with any level of certainty, whether (1) was…

> (1) It was not clear to us, with any level of certainty, whether either tool did anything more useful than filter out people who don't want to take the test / don't trust "AI".

There's at least one way this is beneficial for the employer: Desperate, obsequious job-seekers will be more willing to tolerate the degradation of being judged by a computer. It's perfect for finding employees who will ask "How high?" when you tell them to jump.

I applied to a few jobs at United Healthcare and they kept sending me HireVue interview invitations. Every time I rejected them and when prompted for feedback I said I don't want to be evaluated by a computer. Never heard anything from them (and didn't expect to).

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