Artificial intelligence job hiring outperforms human hiring, but humans don’t want to use it

Artificial intelligence (AI) job hiring is equal to or better than human hiring, but people react negatively towards it, according to a new study published in Artificial Intelligence Review by The Inclusion Initiative at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Researchers at LSE have systematically reviewed the academic literature that considers the effectiveness of AI in the hiring process. Their findings illustrate that AI hiring improves efficiency in hiring by being faster, increasing the fill-rate for open positions, and recommending candidates with a greater likelihood of being hired after an interview. Their review demonstrates that while AI had limited abilities in predicting employee outcomes after being hired, it was a substantial improvement over humans. The authors also assessed whether AI could decrease biased decision-making and improve the diversity of selected candidates. Overall, AI hiring resulted in more diverse outcomes than human hiring.

Finally, the authors looked at how candidates and recruiters are reacting to AI hiring. Their analysis revealed overwhelmingly negative responses to AI hiring. They found that people trust AI hiring less than human hiring because they have privacy concerns, they find AI less personable, and they view organizations deploying AI hiring less attractive than those hiring through humans.

Paris Will, Lead Corporate Research Advisor at The Inclusion Initiative, LSE, said: “Collectively, these findings lead to a gap between how AI is performing and how it is perceived. While AI hiring practices on average showed an improvement over human methods, people are reacting negatively to it. This is significant for the adoption of AI hiring methods and may be holding back better hiring techniques from being implemented.”

Dr. Dario Krpan, Assistant Professor in Behavioral Science at LSE, said: “The media typically portrays AI hiring negatively and emphasizes how AI can discriminate against candidates and disadvantage them. Our analysis, however, shows that even if AI is not perfect, it is fairer and more effective than human recruiters. Rather than focusing on AI in isolation, it is important to compare it to the alternative hiring practices to understand the value it brings to the recruitment process.”

Dr. Grace Lordan, Associate Professor and Founding director of The Inclusion Initiative at LSE: “There is evidence that current hiring processes are plagued by cronyism and bias. It is time that humans hand over the hiring process to machines who do not have these tendencies. Biases embedded in algorithms can be mitigated somewhat with more care from those writing them, and compliance folk, who do not have skin in the hiring process can monitor the process to abate any concerns on fairness. Let’s progress AI in recruitment and workplace inclusivity at the same time.”