THAT WRETCHED HUMAN ELEMENT!

There have been many articles and publications on how AI is changing the world and in many categories in business, it is.? There have been many articles published about the dangers of AI, and there are. But I want to focus in one area dear to my heart, recruitment, or as it is known now, talent acquisition.

For some reason in recruitment, it’s become an obsession with everyone trying to outdo each other in the race to dehumanise what is the most human factor within organisations. I really believe that this will all fall into a smouldering heap in years to come, with increased turnover, lower retention, and company cultures that are less then conducive!

If you Google “AI is revolutionising recruitment”, you get page after page of articles and companies who are developing strategies around AI in their recruitment processes and strategies. How it improves the speed of recruitment, how it is transforming talent acquisition by automating repetitive tasks, how chatbots can send automated personalised messages, and more recently how AI can actually undertake the interview process by AI generated “consultants”. Just wow! How advanced! Perhaps development could go further and actually generate AI produced employees who can be preprogrammed to remove the human element that companies encounter with real humans. That certainly would resolve any employment issues!

Whilst I accept that technology can be used effectively in the recruitment process by facilitating, customising, and just making it easier to go through a process, I truly believe those who are pushing this narrative just don’t have a clue what really goes into the decision making process when people are employed. There’s no question that AI could replicate recruitment in certain fields where the human element is not an imperative, but when it comes to decision making from a certain level in organisations upwards, the dangers of less human intervention are palpable.

AI can never replace the emotional aspects of recruiting your key people. Having done this “craft” for eons, I can honestly say that when an interview is not successful, it is usually because of a behavioural, cultural, or emotional aspect, little to do with the competencies and skills that person possesses. Common reasons are “I just felt Mary wasn’t quite the right fit”, or “John came across nervous and didn’t seem to be able to give coherent answers” or “I don’t know, can’t explain it, but I didn’t feel comfortable with Bob. The other person just fits better in our culture”. You get the point.

Whilst it’s never a guarantee that if both parties “get along” in the interview, if all the other criteria are right, it is the glue that makes it happen.

For example, AI might be evaluating remuneration criteria as a maximum of $X, when the ideal person may want $X+20%, and that person will be eliminated from the beginning. We have two live examples where that was the case in the last month. AI doesn’t negotiate or suggest reasons why spending another $15-20K could be the best investment for that role.

And just thinking it through in another “matching” category, on-line dating. Many sites are apparently using AI elements and have been using algorithms for ages. I recently read where their success rate sits around 10%, so in essence, that’s a 90% failure rate! Will it be the same for talent acquisition software where AI predominates??

The human element is so important today and even more important for high performing organisations. Whilst many argue that intuition and gut feel aren’t important in business, it’s probably amongst the most important criteria to ensure you recruit the highest performing talent that fits into your organisational culture and creates a synergy that leaves your competitors behind. I have some further thoughts on this I'll share in my next post.

This is coming from a human who’s been doing this over multiple decades, and really, the only thing that has changed with how we’ve done it, is that the process is easier. The human element of getting the right person has not changed in successful organisations. ?

Do you agree or is AI the way forward? Would welcome comments.