This is from Sydney Morning Herald reporter, Millie Muroi and it’s good. It shows how our major FMCG companies such as Kmart and Woolworths are getting rid of the recruitment function and leaving it to AI robots. What could go wrong?
People seeking jobs at Kmart now face an AI screening tool that promises to offer personalised feedback, bias-free assessments which cuts out the human element.
We applied for a “holiday casual” role at Kmart and went through the interview process designed by Australian AI chat interview software provider Sapia.ai.
The interview included five questions testing for attributes such as teamwork, reliability and multitasking.
After putting in standard details on Kmart’s job application webpage, we were invited via email to complete an interactive chat interview by a robot.
“We’ll ask you five thought-provoking questions that will reveal your strengths and help you identify areas for growth,” the email read. “And don’t worry, there are no right or wrong answers.”
Yet don’t be fooled answers given determine 90 per cent of the time, who will get hired.
Upon entering the interview screen, a slew of “chat window” style information and pointers were provided.
“You’ve got plenty of time to work through this!” one message read. “Most people wrap up within 20 to 25 minutes, so feel free to take it at your own comfortable pace.”
It also warned that answers “plagiarised, copied from others or using artificially generated content” would be automatically detected and flagged. “This may impact the progression of your application with us.”
Which is ironic – an AI robot telling a human not to use AI to answer questions.
The questions covered standard topics such as multitasking ability, reliability and ability to think on your feet. One question asked applicants to “tell us about a time when you had to work as part of a team to achieve a goal. What role did you play in the team’s success?”
About two hours after completing the assessment, we were emailed “personality insights” gathered from the interview as well as a coaching tip.
“Putting the needs of the group ahead of your own personal gain seems to come naturally to you,” one insight read. “Service over self is probably a good description of how you operate. At work, that kind of integrity is something people notice and trust.”
However, the email also said to, “be careful to not dominate group conversations and projects,” and “create space for others to share their ideas”.
This feedback is useless and probably comes from some outdated Myer Briggs survey. It could have applied to all applicants. The notion that the applicant was someone who puts others’ needs ahead of their own and yet risked dominating conversations was contradictory.
Kmart is part of a growing group of Australian companies, especially in the consumer space, using AI in their recruitment processes. The country’s biggest employer, Woolworths, for example, also uses Sapia.ai to conduct the early stages of their recruitment process, as does Bunnings and Qantas.
Sapia.ai founder and chief executive Barb Hyman said the software has so far assessed more than 10 million people, reduced unconscious bias as well as time and financial costs for businesses.
According to the SMH, Hyman said the company frequently tested for bias based on attributes such as race, age and disability.
Hyman said about 90 per cent of candidates recommended to a firm through the AI process were ultimately hired and that strong written responses given by applicants also correlated with higher verbal communication skills.
“Frontline retail candidates often don’t have a lot of experience, but need to be able to communicate with people.”
Hyman said Sapia.ai served 35 per cent of ASX100 companies, largely made up of consumer brands.
Australian HR Institute chief executive Sarah McCann-Bartlett said most organisations were using AI in their recruitment processes and that it was partly a response to the huge uptick in AI-generated job applications.
While she said AI could be efficient when hiring for a large number of roles and filtering through a higher volume of candidates, McCann-Bartlett said that, especially for senior roles and towards the pointy-end of the hiring process, there needed to be a human making the decisions.
McCann-Bartlett also said employers needed to make sure the software had the right data to work with.
“If data initially fed into AI is not correct, it won’t be able to target the right candidates,” she said. “There’s also a lot of research on bias and discrimination in hiring. If an AI system is trained on historical data that reflects past biases or discrimination, it may replicate that.”