Is AI discriminating against older candidates?

Whether you like it or hate it, AI has firmly made its way into hiring processes across the world. But could this be a disadvantage for a particular group?

Within my network, I've been working to help a number of senior candidates find a new opportunity. These are experienced, extremely credible candidates who would be desirable to almost any company. But these candidates all came to me with a very similar story; they were struggling to get offered an interview in their personal job search.

I've chatted with my network to try and get to the bottom of exactly why this could be happening, and one potential theory came to light immediately…

Are we letting AI have too much authority in a recruitment process?

I'm not here to make any sweeping statements, but my contacts seem to think that AI screening tools might be flawed.

There’s the troubling claim that AI screening can actually discriminate against older, experienced candidates, and there has been research carried out to explore exactly this problem. One professor found that ChatGPT seems to ignore the over 45 demographics when discussing candidates based on a job ad.

If this is truly the reality of AI screening in a recruitment process, then this is a situation that needs to be resolved quickly.

And then there were a few quotes that I've collected from my contacts in my conversations:

"I'm constantly refining my CV to improve my chances of getting through AI screening. It seems counterintuitive that we use AI to help write our CVs, only for AI to assess them afterwards. There's something fundamentally flawed about that process."

"AI is undermining recruitment efforts when highly qualified candidates are getting rejected without even receiving an interview. You look at their experience and wonder how they could possibly have been overlooked."

These quotes raise some interesting points, firstly about certain recruitment processes being AI competing with AI. Candidates use AI to refine their CVs, an AI tool then screens the CV to decide if a candidate should move through to the next stage. Recruitment shouldn’t be about an AI-written document trying to impress an AI screening software.

And we have that second piece about AI overlooking qualified candidates. This again potentially suggests there's an age bias involved, but also a genuine flaw with the process if someone who ticks all the boxes (and more) can be rejected before an interview stage.

How can AI-biased screening processes be avoided?

If the statements above are grounded in truth about the current system, one way to improve this is to find a new way of initially screening candidates. Ways that bring back the human element to this initial stage.

But this is also where difficulty comes in, because having someone manually screen potentially hundreds to thousands of CVs is not possible or a good use of someone's time. A solution here could be to have regular checks on AI screening, comparing which CVs they accept and decline and trying to spot any potential discrimination.

Another option is to use a route to market that bypasses this screening process. When you work with a recruiter, they can source opportunities that are well-suited to your skill set, your availability, and your wants in a role. Plus, in most cases they'll share your information directly with the hiring team, essentially fast-tracking you past any automated, AI screening.

And here's a quote from one of my contacts about the value of building a strong network, especially when you aren't actively searching for a new role:

“Everybody is saying you want to reach out to your network, but you don't want to wait until you are needing a job. The time to be networking is when you are gainfully employed.”

I'd be interested to hear from both sides of the hiring process. If you've struggled to get past AI screening as a candidate, or if you're a business exploring how to use AI without overlooking great talent, I'd welcome a conversation. There's a bigger discussion to be had about how we make recruitment more effective without losing the human element. Please get in touch on andy.martin@fmctalent.com