ADM must be transparent in their recruitment process to attract job seekers

Job applicants are demanding transparency regarding the use of ADM for recruitment. They want to know what data is processed, how decisions are made, and when.

The findings come from a new study by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which was released yesterday along with the ICO’s Strategy on AI and Biometrics.

Concerns have been raised regarding fairness, transparency and accountability as recruitment processes increasingly use Al for screening CVs and application letters, conducting initial interviews and assessing candidate suitability.

The ICO is especially interested in how these technologies affect individuals, particularly marginalised groups that may be disproportionately impacted by biased algorithms.

Revealing Reality was commissioned to collect qualitative evidence on how people perceive ADM and its effects. The research examined reactions to ADM tools of all types, regardless of whether the participants had used them or not.

The survey also revealed the expectations of users of ADM, especially in relation with Article 22 of UK General Data Protection Regulations which protects the rights of individuals in relation to ADM.

The study included remote focus groups consisting of 33 job seekers divided into four groups, to represent a variety of employment experiences and attitudes.

Many job seekers were aware of the increasing use of ADM but had little understanding of its workings. They often perceived it as a binary system, either fully automated or involving human decision making.

Some participants saw benefits in ADM’s early-stage filtering, but they were concerned about its use for final decisions and assessments. Participants were all strongly against fully-automated recruitment decision-making.

The majority expressed concern about the illogical nature of tests and the confusion they caused. They also expressed frustration at the design of tasks for recruitment, like games.

One graduate said: “I remembered one of the games that I got where you had to blow up a ballon. You were given two minutes to pump up the balloons by clicking on your mouse. They would then burst in different places.

“For a graduate position, I wondered, is this really… a measure of skill?”

Participants who thought they’d used ADM tools felt that the process was opaque. One participant said, “The rapidity of the response time and that it is an automated rejection make me think it is ADM.”

Another said: “Getting the same rejection emails for many different jobs could be a sign that it’s ADM.”

Despite the fact that participants believed ADM was widely used, they could not recall ever seeing information about it when making their applications. Many participants believed that employers were not transparent.

One of the graduates said, “I am confident that it is being used but I have not seen any transparency.”

Researchers highlighted key areas for concern and stressed the need to carefully consider ethical implications and the best practices when designing and implementing ADM systems.

• Transparency in recruitment is essential: Participants stressed that transparency was paramount.
• Human oversight remains essential: Participants believed that despite recognizing potential efficiencies, human involvement was still crucial to ensure fairness, address biases and provide individual feedback.
• There are concerns about bias that must be addressed. ADM has the potential to perpetuate and amplify societal biases. ADM systems were expected to be non-discriminatory, fair and unbiased.
• The candidate experience is important: The participants’ experiences during the recruitment process have a significant impact on their perceptions about ADM systems. A lack of communication, vague and impersonal feedback, as well as an unresponsive system, all negatively affected attitudes towards ADM.
• ADM is appropriate in context: Participants’ opinions on ADM are mixed at different stages of recruitment. Although “light-touch” ADM was deemed acceptable for initial filtering, participants expressed significant concerns with more comprehensive or fully automatic systems.

The ICO has announced that it will be consulting on an update of its ADM and profileing guidance and developing a statutory code on AI and ADM over the next year.

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