How will you handle the ChatGPT disruption?

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Generative AI tools for candidates bring new and existential risks to traditional hiring methods.

We already know that CVs aren’t an accurate data point in your recruitment process when assessing a candidate's ability – research has shown a CV can hold around 150 biases. And if this wasn’t enough, a new generation of generative AI tools is making recruiters' lives even more complicated. Candidates now have many innovative AI tools to help them during their recruitment journey, many of which are free or extremely cheap. And their use is being encouraged… Forbes recently released an article called “How to Leverage AI And Use ChatGPT In Your Job Search, According To Résumé Writers And Career Coaches”. 

Here are just some of the new Gen AI tools candidates are using today:

Kickresume can manipulate text-based hiring methods. Candidates input their information into these tools to generate tailored responses to job applications and questions, allowing them to formulate the perfect response every time. 

Whisper AI plugs right into the side of a candidate's screen whilst they are on virtual video interview calls. It transcribes the conversation in real time and will give the candidate a response to the interviewer's question in less than 5 seconds. 

Zapier has created an inbox add-on for Gmail to help you craft the perfect email response to recruiters. Originally a tool to help automate sales responses for commercial teams, Zapier has pivoted to automating the job search for candidates, as it’s a growing market.

Prepper, an AI interview coach, gives candidates tailored questions for the job and company. Every candidate will now stand out at the interview with model answers specific to every industry and sector you could imagine. 

Is using Generative AI cheating?

For years, recruiters have been leveraging AI to screen candidates at scale, with the best ATS systems matching a candidate's application form or CV keywords to the job description. Zoho is leading the way with this level of automation. AI isn’t just starting to catch up for candidates; it’s here, and its popularity is growing daily. SkillSyncer is a popular candidate tool that ensures a resume makes it past clever ATS systems and into the pile of “to be interviewed”. So if both sides of the recruitment pond have access to AI, why would we only blackmark candidates? 

Education started by trying to prevent the use of generative AI and then soon realised this was a mistake. A Wharton professor Ethan Mollick, recently suggested his students should be using AI and called it an emerging skill. This makes sense if you consider using a calculator in a math test. Is this also cheating? If we expect people to use AI in their jobs and integrate it seamlessly into their daily lives, punishing them for utilising it in the recruitment process would be both incongruous and unfair.

Recent research by Neurosight suggests the use of AI by students is now up 30%. We know from our customer base that the emergence of generative AI tools is worrying, especially given the complexity of creating a diversity strategy for early careers. DE&I targets may suffer as superior AI tools like ChatGPT 4, available behind a paywall, offer advantages to those with greater financial resources. Relying on CVs as references becomes questionable when wealth can influence their quality.

Hiring managers may face disappointment when candidates fall short of their impressive CVs and application forms, undermining talent acquisition's credibility. Solely relying on video interviews as screening reference points can exclude individuals who struggle with this format, neglecting important personality traits such as resilience, curiosity, and determination. So, we need to think about how we measure what matters in this new age of generative AI.

Measuring a candidate's true ability in the age of AI.

The value should be placed on human skills in the digital age. In the same way that at the start of the 20th Century, stable hands had to rapidly re-skill to become car mechanics, we need to measure different abilities for a digital world like adaptability, problem-solving, reasoning, and emotional intelligence. All in a way that isn’t text-based and can’t be distorted by AI. 

What’s the answer if text-based approaches are flawed in a generative AI world? Simple: use a task-based approach based on interactions, not textual responses and complement that with a video interview.

Eight years in the making, with over 3 million candidate completions, our assessment represents the next generation of candidate selection tools. I am very excited that we are adding to our original innovation by launching a ground-breaking approach to measuring cognitive ability called ‘Workplace Intelligence’. We use engaging puzzle-based tasks where the candidate builds their answer instead of selecting from multiple-choice questions. We can apply partial scoring to their final result by capturing how people build their answers, just as the education sector does with marking ‘workings out’. By doing this, our assessment measures reasoning skills, learning ability, problem-solving, pattern recognition, and emotional intelligence. This scoring method also reduces differences between protected groups, thus enhancing your DE&I messaging and goals.

As you consider your plans for the year ahead, you must ask yourself: is my hiring process ChatGPT proof? Asking that question in 6 months, when 70% of your applications will have had some generative AI enhancement, may be too late…


Workplace Intelligence from Arctic Shores: The next generation of Aptitude Testing, bringing psychometric assessments into the 21st Century.