The rapid growth of artificial intelligence may spell the end of the job interview, according to Curtin University Future of Work Institute Professor Patrick Dunlop.

AI is already used widely across the recruitment space, by both parties.

For employers, tools such as generative AI can be used to help to parse through swathes of job applications to identify keywords and narrow down candidates.

For job seekers, services like ChatGPT can greatly assist with writing a job application, creating a CV and even practising for interview questions.

It’s possible that the growing sophistication of AI technologies such as ChatGPT and a growing willingness to adopt it across the recruiting process may lead to all elements of the job search being outsourced to the technology, Dunlop said.

This could involve AI-based agents representing both sides throughout the application and interview process.

“It’s a bit of a futuristic joke but I could imagine this happening in the tech sector already, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Dunlop told Information Age.

The other end of the spectrum

But it’s also possible that the use of AI by job seekers may convince some employers to return to purely face-to-face interviews in order to ensure the technology is not being used at all, Dunlop said.

“The thing I worry about is if organisations go fully face-to-face then there are significant implications for accessibility,” Dunlop said.

“I do worry about those old problems resurfacing if we go back to the old way of doing things.”

In the UK, consulting giant Deloitte recently returned to in-person interviews for its graduate scheme over concerns of cheating through the use of AI in its virtual assessments.

AI has already been used in recruiting for several years.

In 2020, recruiters were revealed to be using a range of AI tools to help recruit staff amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

AI tools are being used to read resumes too, employing word recognition software that automatically scans these CVs for key words and applies criteria weighting.

The following year, an AI-powered recruitment platform completed a $6 million public listing on the ASX, with the Western Australian-based Hiremii using artificial intelligence to match the profiles of workers with the needs of prospective employers.

The use of AI in recruitment is moving away from resembling the Wild West towards being more properly controlled and in the realm of organisational psychologists, Dunlop said.

“There are lots of dodgy organisations that don’t do it quite well, but there are some that do it well,” he said.

“You have to pay careful attention to sources of potential bias.

“If it’s programmed well and designed well with people who know what they’re doing and have good intentions, it can be a useful tool for making decisions in an unbiased way.”

AI as a force for good or bad

Depending on how it is implemented, AI has the potential to address some of the inherent biases in the hiring process, or to exacerbate and automate them.

The negative impact of using AI in recruitment was on full display in 2018 when Amazon announced it was doing away with its own AI recruitment tool that was found to favour hiring men for technical jobs.

An Amazon team had been building the program for several years to review resumes and search for the top talent, but stopped using it after discovering it was discriminating against women.

For Dunlop, there is a positive middle ground where AI can be used to assist both job seekers and employers in a way that is fair and ethical.

“Imagine you’re reviewing 200 two-minute long recorded interviews,” he said.

“That’s a hell of a job and you’ll get tired and start unconsciously judging people for other characteristics.

“But the algorithm never gets tired, it’ll continue to work consistently.

“For a candidate that has a deficit such as getting nervous in interviews and having trouble articulating themselves, I can see ChatGPT being a fantastic coach.

“It could run a mock interview with people or simulate testing environments.

“The general principle is that some people have these deficits that undermine their ability to show off what they are capable of and I can see AI as a tool to overcome that.”

In the meantime, an “arms race” is ongoing between job seekers and employers, with both sides looking to stay ahead with the use of innovative technologies such as ChatGPT.

“What we’re seeing now is candidates are using [AI] to act as a proxy for themselves when completing online assessments, like cover letters and resumes,” Dunlop said.

“Then we’re seeing an arms race – candidates are trying to stand out by using ChatGPT, then over time employers are realising they can’t trust these cover letters anymore so they need to adapt as well.”