Marc Lintern, Director of Student and Graduate Success, examines how artificial intelligence can benefit graduate recruitment.
Marc Lintern, Director of Student and Graduate Success
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by students is a topical issue in universities. It raises questions about academic integrity, gives the potential for students to misuse AI in unethical ways, leads to questions on how best to assess work, and it challenges traditional approaches to learning and teaching.
Until now, the use of AI in graduate recruitment has been limited, but the latest ISE Development Survey (Institute of Student Employers) confirms that 9% of their members, including most of the UKs leading graduate recruiters, are now incorporating AI in their recruitment processes. In just twelve months use of AI is increasing and so in helping our students succeed we need to embrace this change and prepare our students for the steps through which they are going to progress.
According to the ISE, one of the main ways in which employers are using AI is in automating their recruitment processes. This includes scheduling candidates for assessment centres and interviews and managing their on-the-day attendance. While it’s helpful that students understand this, many will already be used to chatting with bots as a part of their day to day lives, and so the help students are more likely to need is in getting through the screening processes that employers are using.
The way in which employers are using AI in their screening processes is to reduce the initial volume of applicants, and carrying out candidate rankings, including checking video and written applications for keywords. If our students don’t know how to get to the top of employer lists, their applications will never be read by a person. Thankfully, for now, final decisions lie with the humans.
Proponents of AI will say that this isn’t going to deter from the recruitment and selection process or from the candidate experience. Indeed, far from it. Chatbots are never ill or on holiday, and they are available 24/7 to respond to questions. Many graduate recruiters will also argue that because AI is based on assessing objective data, it helps to reduce bias in recruitment, and they will also claim they can implement AI-driven systems to highlight potential biases in recruitment processes, allowing for necessary adjustments and making recruitment fairer. A counter view is that AI can be used to implement speech analysis, or to predict nationality or ethnicity.
One of the first questions we are asked about AI by students in the Careers and Employability Service is whether they can use this themselves in applying for jobs, to improve their applications, and at what stages. While employer views vary, some at least consider use of AI by students to be a good thing, even where they know that students are using AI to write their applications. However, employers are increasingly putting in checks to identify when candidates are ‘cheating’, and many are starting to choose new selection processes that will stop candidates using AI throughout the recruitment process, such as using case studies that require candidates to watch videos and answer questions based on these.
While AI presents challenges and ethical considerations, the fact that 9% of ISE members now use this in their recruitment suggests this will only grow and evolve. For our students, it is essential that we help them prepare, and to be competitive in an ever-evolving job market, including helping understand when they can use AI themselves. In our teaching and learning, students have asked that our staff use the same technologies, so that it helps them prepare for their future career.
Recommended Speaker Event: For more insight into AI in the workplace, sign up for CHATACLYSM! AI, Robotics and graduate careers presented by Dr Paul Redmond, University of Liverpool. Wednesday 25 October, 8.00am and 2.30pm. Email employability.admin@port.ac.ukemployability.admin@port.ac.uk for a password to register.
Upcoming Event: More than 60 employers will be attending the University Graduate Recruitment and Placements Fair on 19 October, 11.00 to 3.00pm, in the Ravelin Sports Centre. 70% of their roles are open to students of any discipline.
Recommended resources: Please direct your students to the CV Writing Guide on the Careers Service website, including Career Set. Career Set uses AI to help our students match their CVs to job vacancies, and to use keywords that will help them be selected by employers.