It’s a cliché, but nonetheless true, that as time passes all processes become dated.
Some might need to be thrown out completely. Many more need to be adjusted and refined to keep up as workplaces and ways of working change.
I’m not old enough to remember the recruitment days of Rolodex and faxed documents. But I’ve heard the stories. Paper mountains of resumes teetering on desks. Consultants queuing at the one office fax machine to send their applicants’ profiles to clients.
Who knew that today we’d be communicating almost instantly by email, on our own computers, or sifting through resumes using Applicant Tracking Systems? In the 1980s that would have sounded like something from Doctor Who.
Since then, it’s all slowed down a bit.
Sure, ATSs take a lot of the legwork out of choosing who to interview. But they’ve also led to Resume Optimisation tools to help applicants beat our filters.
How can we avoid picking only the people who are best at gaming the system? How do we know we’re not missing our perfect applicants?
Now AI is taking the hiring process another leap forward. It’s speeding up the more process-driven elements and helping us select interviewees who are more likely to fit into our businesses.
And that means we need to re-examine two elements of that hiring process – the resume and the interview.
First, let’s tackle the resume.
Why resumes aren’t worth the paper they’re written on
Here’s a challenge for you. Find five well-known businesses that don’t ask for a resume on their careers page. Difficult, isn’t it?
Now think about the resumes you’ve seen recently.
I’ve seen resumes that are well-constructed, professionally crafted prose. And others that are complete works of fiction.
You’re as likely to find glaring spelling mistakes, a messy layout, and a shameless plea to be considered as you are a concise summary, an attractive photo and carefully chosen keywords. If you’re really unlucky you get all of these in one “super-resume”.
A quick search on “How are resumes used?” reveals the astounding advice that applicants should “know the facts in detail, as they may be questioned” about them. That just confirms my suspicion that these documents are more like scripts than records of facts.
And, there’s one more thing that recruiters know about resumes, even if they don’t all admit it …
Not one CV is properly read when they’re selecting applicants for interview.
According to research by the Cambridge Network, some recruiters give CVs a six-second speed-read and many recruiters spend just under 20% of their time on a profile … looking at the picture!
Resumes are rarely used correctly or understood properly, by applicants or recruiters. They most certainly do not predict how successful an applicant is likely to be in a role. Instead, they’re a minefield of potential bias: year of graduation (age bias), name (racial / gender/identity bias), experience in a similar business (confirmation bias), and so on.
So isn’t it better to put some truly intelligent AI for HR to work instead?
How new AI for HR makes resumes redundant
I was astonished to see that 96 per cent of senior HR leaders understand the benefits of using artificial intelligence in their HR and talent functions. But there’s a big gap between recognising the benefits and reaping them.
The canny HR leaders who are already adopting AI techniques will have a head start on their slower rivals.
Some more traditional HR tech providers have evolved their recruitment tools, presenting them as predictive. However, they’re more likely to be creating profiles of your better staff and matching these profiles to the external candidate market, not predicting how they will perform.
Instead, the new wave of HR tech uses well-constructed algorithms, created using a business’s performance data, to provide an unbiased shortlist of candidates far more likely to succeed within the business once hired.
HR tech uses well-constructed algorithms
The algorithm can’t be misled by optimisation techniques, personal feelings or prejudice. Instead, it uses objective data, science and evidence to find the people who are most likely to be a good fit and perform. For this role, in this business. And it will help uncover applicants we might have otherwise overlooked when their resume didn’t match our expectations.
The better solutions work by identifying the defining characteristics of the whole performance group within a business (superstars through to under-performers) and then predicts where external applicants will sit on your performance scale once/if hired.
These advanced solutions then go further via validation reports to prove their better predictions are turning into better new hires. They then use Machine Learning to ensure each unique model continues to learn more about the performance of each business, further improving its predictive power over time.
These two additional steps mean that whilst us humans are still required to make the final hiring decision, we will get better results for our applicants and our businesses. Maybe that’s where the resume might still have a role – as the frame for some reasonable high-level questions to help us understand the person in front of us in more depth, once they’ve got through the first stage.
The most sophisticated algorithms are already outperforming humans in the selection and identification of suitable candidates – and by that I mean candidates who go on to become productive, valuable and loyal employees.
Decision time for CHROs
So, what would you rather have?
– A shortlist of candidates chosen because of what they’ve selected to include in (and omit from) their resume?
Or
– A shortlist of candidates you know are likely to do well in your workforce, because they’ve been chosen using statistically-proven, company-specific performance drivers validated by behavioural science?
Not that tricky a question, is it?
And very easy to see how, with the advent of AI for HR, resumes will soon be as much a part of recruitment as faxes and Rolodex.
Suggested Reading:
https://sapia.ai/blog/cv-tells-you-nothing/
Related
Blog
The AGC Debate: Are AI-Written Interview Answers a Red Flag or Smart Strategy?
Every day, we read stories of increased fake or AI-assisted applications. Tools like LazyApply are just one of many flooding the market, driving up applicant volumes to never-before-seen levels.
As an overwhelmed hiring function, how do you find the needle in the haystack without using an army of recruiters to filter through the maze?
At Sapia.ai, we help global enterprises do just that. Many of the world’s most trusted brands, such as Qantas Group, have relied on our hiring platform as a co-pilot for better hiring since 2020.
Our Chat Interview has given millions of candidates a voice they wouldn’t have had – enabling them to share in their own words why they’re the best fit for the role. To find the people who belong with their brands, our customers must trust that their candidates represent themselves. Thus, they want to trust that our AI is analysing real human answers—not answers from a machine.
The Rise of GPT
When ChatGPT went viral in November 2022, we immediately adopted a defensive strategy. We had long been flagging plagiarised candidate responses, but then, we needed to act fast to flag responses using artificially generated content (‘AGC’).
Many companies were in the same position, but Sapia.ai was the only company with a large proprietary data set of interview answers that pre-dated GPT and similar tools: 2.5 billion words written by real humans.
That data enabled us to build a world-first:- an LLM-based AGC detector for text-based interviews, recently upgraded to v2.0 with 99% accuracy and a false positive rate of 1%. An NLP classification model built on Sapia.ai proprietary data that operates across all Sapia.ai chat interviews.
Full Transparency with Candidates
Because we value candidate trust as much as customer trust, we wanted to be transparent with candidates about our ability to detect artificially generated content (AGC). As an LLM, we could identify AGC in real time and warn candidates that we had detected it.
This has had a powerful impact on candidate behaviour. Since our AGC detector went live, we have seen that the real-time flagging acts as a real-time disincentive to use tools like ChatGPT to generate interview responses.
The detector generates a warning if 3 or more answers are flagged as having artificially generated content. The Sapia.ai Chat Interview uses 5 open-ended interview questions for volume hiring roles, such as retail, contact centre, and customer service, and 6 questions for professional roles, such as engineers, data scientists, graduates, etc.
Let’s Take a Closer Look at the Data…
We see that using our AGC detector LLM to communicate live with candidates in the interview flow when artificial content has been detected has a positive effect on deterring candidates from using AI tools to generate their answers.
The rate of AGC use declines from 1 question flagged to 5 questions – raising the flag on one question is generally enough to deter candidates from trying again.
The graph below shows the number of candidates, from a total of almost 2.7m, that used artificially generated content in their answers.
Differences in AGC Usage Rate by Groups
We see no meaningful differences in candidate behaviour based on the job they are applying for or based on geography.
However, we have found differences by gender and ethnicity – for example, men use artificially generated content more than women. The graph below shows the overall completion ratios by gender – for all interviews on the left and for interviews where the number of questions with AGC detected is 5 or more on the right.
Perception of Artificially Generated Content by Hirers.
We’re curious to understand how hirers perceive the use of these tools to assist candidates in a written interview. The creation of the detector was based on the majority of Sapia.ai customers wanting transparency & explainability around the use of these tools by candidates, often because they want to ensure that candidates are using their own words to complete their interviews and they want to avoid wasting time progressing candidates who are not as capable as their chat interview suggests.
However, some of our customers feel that it’s a positive reflection of the candidate, showing that they are using the tools available to them to put their best foot forward.
It’s a mix of perspectives.
Our detector labels it as the use of artificially generated content. It’s up to our customers how they use that information in their decision-making processes.
This concept of having a human in the loop is one of the key dimensions of ethical AI, and we ensure that it is used in every AI-related hiring product we build.
Interested in the science behind it all? Download our published research on developing the AGC detector 👇
Research Paper Download: AI Generated Content in Online Text-based Structured Interviews
Blog
Joe & the Juice Partners with Sapia.ai, Scaling an Exceptional Candidate Experience and Cutting Time to Hire
Read the full press release about the partnership here.
Joe & the Juice, the trailblazing global juice bar and coffee concept, is renowned for its vibrant culture and commitment to cultivating talent. With humble roots from one store in Copenhagen, now with a presence in 17 markets, Joe & The Juice has built a culture that fosters growth and celebrates individuality.
But, as their footprint expands, so does the challenge of finding and hiring the right talent to embody their unique culture. With over 300,000 applications annually, the traditional hiring process using CVs was falling short – leaving candidates waiting and creating inefficiencies for the recruitment team. To address this, Joe & The Juice turned to Sapia.ai, a pioneer in ethical AI hiring solutions.
A Fresh Approach to Hiring
Through this partnership, Joe & The Juice has transformed its hiring process into an inclusive, efficient, and brand-aligned experience. Instead of faceless CVs, candidates now engage in an innovative chat-based interview that reflects the brand’s energy and ethos. Available in multiple languages, the AI-driven interview screens for alignment with the “Juicer DNA” and the brand’s core values, ensuring that every candidate feels seen and valued.
Candidates receive an engaging and fair interview experience as well as personality insights and coaching tips as part of their journey. In fact, 93% of candidates have found these insights useful, helping to deliver a world-class experience to candidates who are also potential guests of the brand.
“Every candidate interaction reflects our brand,” Sebastian Jeppesen, Global Head of Recruitment, shared. “Sapia.ai makes our recruitment process fair, enriching, and culture-driven.”
Results That Matter
For Joe & The Juice, the collaboration has yielded impressive results:
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33% Reduction in Screening Time: Pre-vetted shortlists from Sapia.ai’s platform ensure that recruiters can focus on top candidates, getting them behind the bar faster.
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Improved Candidate Satisfaction: With a 9/10 satisfaction score from over 55,000 interviews, candidates appreciate the fairness and transparency of the process.
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Bias-Free Hiring: By eliminating CVs and integrating blind AI that prioritizes fairness, Joe & The Juice ensures their hiring reflects the diverse communities they serve.
Frederik Rosenstand, Group Director of People & Development at Joe & The Juice, highlighted the transformative impact: “Our juicers are our future leaders, so using ethical AI to find the people who belong at Joe is critical to our long-term success. And now we do that with a fair, unbiased experience that aligns directly with our brand.”
Trailblazing for the hospitality industry
In an industry so wholly centred on people, Joe & the Juice is paving the way for similar brands to adopt technology that enables inclusive, human-first experiences that can reflect a brand’s core values.
If you’re curious about how Sapia.ai can transform your hiring process, check out our full case study on Joe & The Juice here.
Blog
Sapia.ai Wrapped 2024
It’s been a year of Big Moves at Sapia.ai. From welcoming groundbreaking brands to achieving incredible milestones in our product innovation and scale, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in hiring.
And we’re just getting started 🚀
Take a look at the highlights of 2024
All-in-one hiring platform
This year, with the addition of Live Interview, we’re proud to say our platform now covers screening, assessing and scheduling.
It’s an all-in-one volume hiring platform that enables our customers to deliver a world-leading experience from application through to offer.
Supercharging hiring efficiency
Every 15 seconds, a candidate is interviewed with Sapia.ai.
This year, we’ve saved hiring managers and recruiters hours of precious time that can now be used for higher-value tasks.
Giving candidates the best experience
Our platform allows candidates to be their best selves, so our customers can find the people that truly belong with them. They’re proud to use a technology that’s changing hiring, for good.
Leading the way in AI for hiring
We’ve continued to push the boundaries in leveraging ethical AI for hiring, with new products on the way for Coaching, Internal Mobility & Interview Builders.