Last reviewed: 22 June 2022
By Diane Lightfoot, CEO, Business Disability Forum
Artificial intelligence (AI) has developed in a way that few of us could have imagined (or at least, not in a good way, for those of us who group up on the Terminator films!). Amazon’s Alexa is an obvious example of technology that has transformed lives – particularly for disabled people, enabling independence and choice in everyday life. But what about AI in recruitment?
AI – Barrier or enabler?
All forms of technology can be a barrier or can enable, and AI in recruitment has the potential to remove human biases – conscious and unconscious – from recruitment processes. But we need to be aware of – and avoid – the pitfalls. Many businesses require all applications to go through an online portal – that’s been the norm for a while now.
From a disability point of view, hopefully you will have designed them so that they are accessible for assistive technology including screen readers. But are you aware how else they might be disadvantaging disabled candidates? Many platforms include an automatic sifting function to aid with shortlisting, particularly in mass recruitment. But what if the algorithms are set up to automatically reject an applicant without a particular qualification or a gap in their career history? Many disabled candidates may have a gap in their education or CV or simply not had the opportunity to get the same experience as other candidates – but can demonstrate their skills in other ways.
AI in interviewing goes yet a step further and there are serious concerns not just in the disability space about a machine assessing candidates whose face, quite literally, doesn’t quite “fit”. A prescribed and coded idea of what a “good” candidate looks and sounds like could seriously discriminate against people who look or sound different – people with facial disfigurement for example, people who struggle to make eye contact or who have a tic or a stammer.
Even what we think of as “old” technology can be a barrier in recruitment; we recently conducted an end-to-end recruitment review for one of our members who were keen to find out why and where disabled candidates were falling out of the recruitment process. We found that this organisation routinely included a telephone screening interview towards the start of the process – and this was representing a major barrier for D/deaf or hearing-impaired candidates who dropped out of the process as a result.
Making technology work for us
Knowing this organisation, I am absolutely sure that they would have offered a different method as an adjustment if requested. But think how it feels to be a candidate in a recruitment process. It’s a very high pressure, high stakes and nerve-wracking process for most, so to ask for something different, which potentially marks you out as different, which has not been proactively offered to you, can feel too big a risk to make. So be proactive. Offer alternatives up front. In a remote interview situation, this is about offering (if possible) different online platforms too; even those we most commonly use work differently and have different accessibility functions which may suit some candidates and not others.
The key is making sure that the technology is working for US rather than other way round. And that means involving people. Too often we “don’t know what we don’t know”, until it’s too late, or too expensive to fix. So engage your procurement, IT, HR teams at the start of a process to make sure you design accessibility in and bias out. Crucially, involve disabled people from the start. It’s only by including people with a range of different conditions and lived experiences throughout the process – from design to inception to user testing and rollout – that you will be able to identify and design out barriers.
Ultimately this is about providing an opportunity for every candidate to perform at their best and that also means making the experience feel as positive as possible for them. Only then can you be sure you really are recruiting the best candidate for the role.
More information
For tailored advice about your organisation’s recruitment practices and the role of AI, contact our Advice Service.
Read next
- Blog – AI in recruitment: Friend or foe?
- Procuring disability smart recruitment services
- Monitoring inclusive practices in outsourced recruitment services
- Charter for disability-smart recruitment providers
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