Is Technology replacing face to face interviews?

Many businesses say that the cost of recruiting is one of their most time-consuming and costly processes.

Finding the right candidate can take many weeks, even in those roles where there is not a major skills shortage.

It is possible to save time by using a recruitment agency to conduct the search, but this then adds to the overall cost of filling the vacancy.

Not surprisingly, therefore, there has been a trend towards using video and increasingly, AI, for the initial screening interviews.

The advantages of using AI to screen out unsuitable candidates

The most obvious advantage is that a human being does not have to spend hours reading applications and CVs to whittle down those people who are suitable for interview.

It has been argued also that AI can be used to avoid unconscious and conscious biases in recruitment practices by removing common tendencies, like hiring those similar to the interviewer and the possibility of mistaken first impressions.

A well-programmed algorithm can assess speech, tone and facial movements and use keywords to select those people who most closely match the criteria needed for the role. It can also assess the credibility of claims made in a CV.

..and the disavantages?

The key is in the words well-programmed. There is an argument that even robots contain biases, perhaps introduced unconsciously by their programmers.

Also, unless kept up to date, they will not allow for social and behavioural changes that take place in society.

Human beings are not machines, they are infinitely variable, so a candidate who could be rejected because they don’t tick all the pre-programmed AI boxes may well have qualities that are not immediately obvious.  In some cases, this could mean that a degree of potential innovative ability may well be missed and that could be crucial to some roles.

The solution?  A combination of AI in the early stages of weeding out the plainly unsuitable, but allowing some borderline cases onto the selected list with a face to face interview with a human being to refine the search.