Job Hunting Job Hunting
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Issue: Job Hunting Job Hunting By: Vickie Elmer Pub. Date: July 23, 2018 Access Date: September 25, 2021 DOI: 10.1177/237455680422.n1 Source URL: http://businessresearcher.sagepub.com/sbr-1946-107412-2897317/20180723/job-hunting ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Will AI and robots dominate the process? Executive Summary A decade after the worst recession since World War II, the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen so much that some small cities are offering bonuses to attract workers. The confluence of a tight labor market and the technology revolution has reshaped both sides of the job-search process. Major companies are now using artificial intelligence to identify top candidates and screen applicants. As they do so, job seekers are turning to online tools and are using social media to rate employers as if they were pizza parlors. Some job candidates say they find the new world of AI screening impersonal and alienating; others are concerned about being replaced by a robot themselves. Among the key takeaways: There are now more job openings in the United States than job seekers, the first time this has happened since the government began collecting such data 18 years ago. Close to half of all employers say they have difficulty filling posts, with skilled trades workers, software app developers and financial analysts especially hard to find. The low unemployment rate has helped make job recruitment itself a large and growing industry, employing more than 670,000 people. Full Report A Russian company has developed a robot named Vera, powered by artificial intelligence, to vet résumés and interview job candidates. (Stafory Ltd.) A decade ago, the unemployment rate topped 9 percent and job seekers resorted to donning sandwich-board signs and standing on sidewalks, hoping to get noticed and hired. The 2007-09 recession meant millions of jobs disappeared and college graduates were stuck Page 2 of 14 Job Hunting SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. working as waiters, cashiers or tutors. The Washington Post called it “the era of the overeducated barista” and reported that in 2012 half of all recent college graduates were either underemployed or jobless. 1 Now, the worst recession since World War II has given way to the lowest U.S. unemployment rate since the start of this century. 2 Jobs are plentiful – and workers are in such demand that in some smaller cities such as Hamilton, Ohio, and North Platte, Neb., they are offered cash bonuses if they will move to accept a job. “Eventually you run out of people to do the work,” said Mike Allgrunn, an economist at the University of South Dakota, who called the incentives “a modern-day Homestead Act,” a reference to the 1860s legislation that lured settlers west by offering free land. 3 And employers are reacting to this tight labor market with more than just money. Increasingly, they are turning to high-tech tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI), for recruiting and identifying good candidates. At companies such as J.P. Morgan and Unilever, initial screening interviews are done using AI. 4 The trend toward a digital, data-driven labor market cuts both ways. Searching for a job has evolved from mailing out stacks of résumés printed on fine paper to uploading a LinkedIn profile and being directed to online games, questions and assessments. The process has become impersonal and, for some, hard to master. Workers are both in demand and worried about being replaced by AI. Recruiters now work with robots. Employers strive for a good reputation with workers, especially now that they are rated on sites such as Glassdoor, like sushi or pizza parlors on Yelp. The U.S. labor market has become so tight that 46 percent of employers surveyed said it was hard to fill jobs, especially in sales or skilled trades, according to a report by ManpowerGroup, a Milwaukee-based staffing firm. 5 Large companies are more likely to report difficulties in adding staff than are smaller firms, ManpowerGroup found. 6 “It’s expensive to have a job not done, just like it’s expensive to make a bad hire,” says Susan Joyce, editor and publisher of Job-Hunt.org, a website that helps job seekers. Gerry Crispin, co-founder of the talent acquisition site CareerXroads, has traveled the world to research recruiting and hiring. He sees a growing sophistication in employers’ ability to match people and jobs through assessments and screenings. There are more programs, he says, that mimic the rote tasks recruiters used to perform, “freeing up recruiters to be more focused on candidates who are the best candidates.” Yet individuals still need help understanding how to choose employers and manage their careers, Crispin says, and ask the right questions to reveal perils and warning signs of a difficult or dysfunctional workplace. “Candidates don’t know the questions to ask until they have had a [poor] boss,” says Crispin. Amid these swirling changes, recruiting and hiring has become a big business. More than 670,000 people work as human resources specialists and managers in the United States, many of them as recruiters who travel to career fairs and hiring events for employers. 7 They fill more than 5.5 million jobs a month, a mix of vacant and newly created positions. 8 The biggest players in the job search market are LinkedIn and Indeed, Joyce and others say. Indeed has “probably the biggest database of résumés in the world,” Joyce says. Indeed is owned by the Japanese firm Recruit Holdings Co. Ltd., which also acquired Resume.com, Workopolis and Glassdoor in recent months. 9 Google is adding new job search functions, entering the market in India and Canada and adding tools for recruiting, including one that reconnects hiring managers or recruiters with candidates they have considered before, which may increase the speed of hiring. 10 Google, LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter and their rivals compete vigorously to increase market share by helping employers reach the best candidates and hire for difficult-to-fill positions. Indeed does not allow its job listings to show up in Google for Jobs. Other sites, which do, are making “a deal with the devil, but it’s worth it” for the traffic from Google, said Charlene Li, principal analyst with Altimeter Group, a research firm based in San Mateo, Calif. 11 Also growing through acquisitions are the largest staffing firms: Allegis Group, Randstad Holding and Adecco. 12 Job Seekers Want Faster Response Times Percentage saying area needs improvement Page 3 of 14 Job Hunting SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Note: Respondents could select up to two answers. Source: “The Future of Recruiting,” CareerArc, February 2017, https://tinyurl.com/yargupfo Almost 70 percent of job seekers feel employers need to improve their response time, according to a 2017 survey by CareerArc, a job recruitment company. The job website CareerBuilder has hired nearly 200 data scientists and AI experts to imbue its search site with artificial intelligence. 13 At LinkedIn, artificial intelligence is so crucial that the company launched AI Academy to teach its engineers, product managers and others to use it. 14 AllyO is an AI-powered virtual recruiting assistant used by huge companies such as AT&T and Hilton to interact with candidates and schedule interviews. AllyO says it reduces hiring time by up to 83 percent. 15 AI tools will evaluate a résumé, then schedule an interview, often within 24 hours. At some companies, an AI robot will conduct the first screening interview. A chatbot – a computer program designed to simulate human conversation – evaluates the information gathered about the applicant and may send a no-thanks email or suggest other jobs before a human recruiter ever sees a résumé. “It’s a very human-like interaction,” said Eyal Grayevsky, CEO of the company that created a candidate evaluation chatbot named Mya. 16 Google created a program called qDroid, which drafts interview questions based on information employers provided on the qualities Google emphasizes. “They’re gradually getting smarter,” says Joyce of Job-Hunt.org, speaking about AI programs. “But I don’t think recruiters have a lot to be worried about yet.” Companies are also using online assessments to measure soft skills such as teamwork and curiosity. 17 Indeed recently rolled out more than 50 online skills assessments, ranging from attention to detail and written Spanish communication to sales-influencing abilities. 18 “Many of the tools make extraordinary claims” to decrease hiring times, predict a new hire’s future performance and more, says Crispin of CareerXroads, yet he says no one is tracking results over the long run. Often, employers just want tools that easily mesh with existing systems, he says. Page 4 of 14 Job Hunting SAGE Business Researcher ©2021 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. AI also is being used on sites to help individuals understand the skills required and connect to job openings that suit them, or locate employers that will recruit and hire people lacking relevant experience. 19 Yet its usage can sometimes veer into the creepy. Artificial intelligence from a company called Fama analyzes seven years of word choice, photos and other content in social media posts to discern worldview and personal characteristics – such as bigotry – to narrow the pool of candidates. Another AI tool predicts whether a candidate will fit into the corporate culture and how long he or she may stay. 20 Hiring using AI could reduce bias – or increase it. 21 Using machine learning may rule out people with disabilities or minorities. For example, it could see a pattern of higher absences among people with depression or other disabilities and decide not to hire them, thereby discriminating against a protected class.