The disabled are a considerable part of the world population today. They have a big struggle to equip themselves and get a decent education. then the steep task of getting employed begins! More often than not, they are faced with hard set misconceptions and prejudices that prevent them from being gainfully employed despite being qualified and talented. Can AI-Enabled hiring solve this problem and aid in inclusion? Read on
At the outset, when someone mentions or talks about AI in hiring, it all sounds very futuristic and in the realm of fantasy. There is even a fear that sentient AI will take our jobs and hence the world at large. But let me assure you that it won’t happen. AI in hiring is at best a very thoughtful assistant or aid who can help you very objectively and without bias. And that is the area where the relevance of AI and it helping the disabled come in.
Let us see what happens in a classic scenario without AI supported hiring. The normal scenario is that a resume is scanned, keywords with skills are looked at and if there is a match, then there is a telephonic round where a candidate is assessed initially. If all is well, then there is a face to face and then the various rounds follow till the requirement is closed on mutual agreement. Now for a disabled candidate, mentioning the disability on the resume is a huge risk, the problem is that the HR officers who are scanning the document for matches tend to summarily reject candidates with disabilities. Even if they don’t, the telephonic round tends to be very awkward with a lot of sensitive and inappropriate questions being asked which leads to the candidate either struggling or rejected. Almost always, they never make it to the final rounds. If they do, there again the same cycle repeats. So can AI help here? What will it change?
The whole process is different with AI. The screening is objective and there are no traces of human bias. So if a resume says disabled but still has all the requisite skills, the system will flag it as selected and not summarily reject it. Subsequent chats will happen with a bot that is programmed to be focused and very clearly practical, hence there will be no embarrassing and inappropriate parts in the subsequent chats and a fit will be marked as a fit and nothing else. That will aid the candidate in going into the face to face with a lot more confidence and hence clearing it and getting gainfully employed is easier.
So here is where AI steps in and cleans up the whole process and hence addresses the key issue of inclusion. First, the candidate is comfortable, and then the skills are all that matter. Then there is the enterprise side of the advantage where there is no need to hire, train and sensitize human resources to handle all this in the right way, the AI plugged in to the hiring system does that and it does it well. Whatever you pay as licensing is more than easily recovered in savings and ease of hiring candidates.
So are such systems going to be available soon for enterprises? Well, think again! They are already here and Spire TalentSHIP is one of the best there is to get these things done! So all that you need is an enterprise willing to change then!
