Investigating the use of AI tools in hiring and recruitment
Coefficient and Bays Consulting are adopting a socio-technical approach to reduce unfair bias in CV screening algorithms and applicant tracking systems used in the recruitment sector.
Join us for our panel of experts who will be reporting their findings in this market and explore the pressing need for standardised AI oversight in our hiring landscape.
72% of CVs are never seen by human eyes. Computer programs flip through them, pulling out skills and experiences, scoring each one as a match for the job opening. The more candidates they eliminate with this first screening, the fewer human-hours they’ll have to spend processing the top matches. — Cathy O’Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction (2007)
Program
7pm Presentations 📈 🧑🔬👩🔬
Dr Sophie Carr, CEO of Bays Consulting and John Sandall, CEO of Coefficient - present a history of AI Fairness and their insights working with AI tools in the public sector.
7.40pm Fireside Chat 🔥🪑💬
Hosted by John Sandall and Dr Sophie Carr with James Scott Senior Policy Advisor at Responsible Technology Adoption Unit and Joshua Vantard, Founder of the automated recruiter app Hilbert.
8.10pm Food and Drink break 🥤🐟🍟
An assortment of non-alcoholic beverages, Fish & Chips and salad options will be provided to all attendees
8.20pm Discussion Groups 💬👥💼
Attendees will be invited to join specific discussion groups with a theme relevant to their area of professional expertise, and add their voices relevant to the discussion.
About our speakers
John Sandall is the CEO and Principal Data Scientist at Coefficient, a data consultancy that specialises in data science, analytics, software engineering, and machine learning. His extensive experience encompasses various industries and applications, reflecting a deep passion for leveraging data to solve real-world problems. John is a Fellow of Newspeak House, co-founder of Humble Data and a co-organiser of PyData London.
Dr Sophie Carr is the founder and owner of Bays Consulting, a company that aims to build a better world where every life is positively impacted by maths, not magic. She has been recognized as one of the UK's best scientific minds and is a Vice President of the Royal Statistical Society for Education and Statistical Literacy.
Her expertise in Bayesian Belief Networks, strategies for data capture and analysis, understanding of complex data sets, and data fusion plays a crucial role in creating pragmatic solutions for clients across various industries and government sectors.
James Scott is a Senior Advisor in the Department of Science and Technology's (DSIT) Responsible Technology Adoption Unit supporting the responsible development and use of AI technology through a range of socio-technical tools and techniques. Previously, James has worked in a range of policy, research and international roles across a range of government departments.
Joshua Vantard is the founder of Hilbert.app, a platform that helps companies automate job interviews and screening tests to hire the best underpriced talent faster. Joshua has a background in philosophy, economics, computer science and artificial intelligence at KU Leuven. One of his theses focused on risk in socio-technological systems with a first-principles framework to analyse and mitigate technology risks. He founded Intelligent Crazy People, a curated community of 2500 global members allowing smart people from Silicon Valley OGs to students to artists to meet up in inviting homely settings. Joshua believes that partial automation of interviewing, vetting, screening and consensual scaling and sharing of interviews can build a more meritocratic barrierless world, removing credentialism and increasing skill-based hiring. He designed Hibert so employers can interview the 90% who might otherwise fail manual or AI-enhanced CV screening stages.
About our host - Newspeak House
Newspeak House is an initiative that fosters a collaborative environment focused on creativity, innovation, and community engagement. It cultivates a rich environment that not only nurtures creativity but also emphasizes the importance of community engagement, shared learning and social responsibility.
Discussion Topics
This workshop addresses the growing reliance on AI in recruitment, focusing on CV screening tools. The global AI Recruitment market was estimated at $630.54 million in 2022 and projected to reach $839.52 million by 2028 (Business Tech News, 2023). Many companies offer AI tools to help with recruitment, including Beamery, Upwork, Eightfold AI (Schroer, 2023), Headstart, Arctic Shores (Tracxn, 2023), ZipRecruiter, ZohoRecruit and Indeed (Capterra, 2023). 86% of companies are now incorporating AI into hiring processes (Gartner, 2020). The EU’s draft AI regulations classify hiring systems as “High-Risk” (Benjamin, Buehler, Dooley, and Zipparo, 2021) (European Parliament, 2023), yet the UK’s Government and the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) indicates that
“Algorithmic auditing is currently not conducted extensively and the market for audits is relatively immature” - (GOV.UK, 2022).
Algorithmic bias in recruitment most often results from historically prejudiced training data (Drage, Mackereth, 2022), e.g. more men were hired for senior positions (Dastin, 2018) or unequal representation of certain groups (lack of ethnic diversity, women in STEM, ageism) (Schwartz, 2019) (Gilbert, 2023) (Datta, Datta, Tschantz, Wing). Biased data can inadvertantly perpetuate systemic biases through feedback loops. The "black box" nature of AI systems complicates bias identification due to a lack of transparency and explainability (GOV.UK, 2022), especially if organisations lack technical skills to measure bias.
Recommended Reading
To prepare for breakout discussions we highly recommend reviewing.....
Artificial Intelligence in Hiring: Assessing the impacts on equality - Institute for the Future of Work
Does AI Debias Recruitment? Race, Gender, and AI’s “Eradication of Difference” - Eleanor Drage, Kerry Mackereth
iTutorGroup to Pay $365,000 to Settle EEOC Discriminatory Hiring Suit - U.S equal Opportunity Employment Commission
Data-Driven Tools in Recruitment Guidance - Recruitment and employment confederation
About the project
The AI Fairness Innovation Challenge to develop novel solutions for addressing unfair bias and discrimination in artificial intelligence systems. The Challenge, managed by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and delivered by Innovate UK, was created to fund new ways to address statistical, human and structural bias and discrimination in AI systems.