Recruiter's AI Digest #24

Resources and perspectives to keep you ahead of the curve as AI deepens its impact in Recruiting. 🤖

Welcome to the community of 2,000 forward-thinking recruiting leaders. 🎉 We stay on the pulse of AI and its impact on recruiting, so you don’t have to!

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This week’s digest

AI bias vs. human bias

The "AI is biased" argument comes up frequently when discussing AI's involvement in decision-making (e.g. in the hiring process). Some will anchor their arguments against AI completely around the fact that AI could be biased. One thing this argument often doesn’t acknowledge is that humans are inherently biased too.

Let’s look at two extremes:

1️⃣ Humans make all the decisions (basically where we’re at today)

This is the way it’s always been. And we know humans are biased - countless studies have shown this. What’s worse is that often, humans aren’t even aware of their own biases. This can lead to organizations lacking diversity, as people’s unconscious biases sway hiring decisions, leading them to hire people ‘just like them’.

2️⃣ AI makes all the decisions

The other end of the spectrum is a world where AI makes all the decisions. We know (at least with AI’s current capabilities) how this can go awry. Take the example of Amazon's failed recruiting engine that penalized resumes containing the word “women’s” and downgraded graduates of all-women’s colleges due to the biased data it was trained on. As the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out - biased data produces biased AI.

If decision-making was fully outsourced to AI, "the AI told me to do it!" would become a common excuse to avoid responsibility.

Option 3: Humans making AI-enhanced decisions

I envision a best-case scenario where AI enhances human decision-making, but humans remain ultimately responsible for the decisions. Carefully developed AI could help address human limitations over time and make us more aware of our inherent biases.

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Quick tip - how I use AI day-to-day:

I’ve found this tool to be super useful. https://glasp.co/youtube-summary 📹

It’s a Youtube plugin that sits next to videos and gives you a full transcript. It lets you send the transcript to ChatGPT and summarize videos in an instant. I normally copy the transcript and paste it into Claude instead, since Claude handles long texts better than ChatGPT. It's a cool way to digest hour-long videos/podcasts without watching the full thing! 🕑

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​In this week’s newsletter, some awesome material worth checking out:

• 📹 Video:

  • Pragmatic Applications of AI in Recruiting (Moderated by Hung Lee)

  • Create your L&D Strategy with ChatGPT (Johannes Sundlo)

• 📖 Article:

  • Why Do We Resist Automation? (Kevin Wheeler)

  • How AI is changing work and what HR leaders should do about it (IBM)

• 🛠 Tools:

  • 72 ChatGPT Prompts for Recruiters (Robin Choy)

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Are there people you know struggling to digest all the AI news? Share this newsletter with them. 🙏

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Pragmatic Applications of AI in Recruiting (Moderated by Hung Lee)

In case you missed it, Episode 6 of the AI in Recruitment Webinar is now available below. A very impressive line-up so a must-watch!

🔎 Here are some of my quick takeaways:

• Has AI adoption peaked: Views were mixed on whether AI adoption has peaked or is still growing. Adoption seems higher in some functions than in recruiting/TA specifically.

• How are Leaders and Recruiters using AI: For personal productivity - writing, research, idea generation. Asking ‘How can you help me do my job better - the AI will tell you how it can help’. But critical thinking is still required.

• AI policies: Some companies now have AI policies, but many don't yet. Policies help guide ethical usage. New laws are also emerging around AI usage.

• Advice Identify processes needing improvement, embrace tools cautiously, upskill where humans still add value. Also get involved in AI discussions happening in your company.

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Create your L&D Strategy with ChatGPT (Johannes Sundlo)

I highly recommend checking out this Youtube channel, as Johannes will be posting regular content on how he leverages ChatGPT in his day-to-day work: 📹

• ChatGPT can act as an always-on L&D consultant that you can query 24/7.

• Start by setting the context - give ChatGPT a prompt to tell it you want advice on L&D strategy.

• Ask high-level questions about creating an L&D strategy. ChatGPT provides an overview of the steps.

• You can then have a back-and-forth chat to dive deeper on specific areas.

• ChatGPT won't create a full strategy for you, but provides a framework you can build on.

• Also use ChatGPT to get advice on measuring training effectiveness and metrics to track.

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Why Do We Resist Automation? (Kevin Wheeler)

Kevin Wheeler has some hot takes on automation in recruiting. He says recruiters often worry that robots will replace them, but automation could make their jobs way better. 🙌

Why Do We Resist Automation?

Here's the lowdown:

• Automation can actually improve candidate experience, despite assumptions it's impersonal

• People use and like chatbots, so automated communication isn't necessarily bad.

• Our intuitions often fail, while data and AI assessments are more accurate.

• Automation enables focusing on influencing and coaching, not just admin.

• AI provides insights on hiring manager preferences to find better fits.

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How AI is changing work and what HR leaders should do about it (IBM)

The IBM Institute for Business Value published an interesting new report on AI's impact on the workforce. 🤖 Here are some key takeaways:

• 40% of the workforce will need re-skilling due to AI/automation in the next few years. That's ~1.4 billion people!

• AI's impact will vary - entry-level roles are most affected now, executives less so. 👔

• 87% think employees will be augmented, not replaced by AI. Different functions see different levels of augmentation.

• Employees want meaningful work more than flexibility/growth, but execs think flexibility is most important to them.

• HR leaders have a big role in redesigning work for the AI-powered future. 💼 They need to reskill workers, rethink operating models, and engage employees.

Read it here.

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72 ChatGPT Prompts for Recruiters (Robin Choy)

Robin Choy has over the past 6 months collated a list of 72 helpful ChatGPT prompts for recruiters. 🤖

Here is the doc (Link) - you’ll need to request access from Robin!

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