Are Millions of Americans Being Rejected by Questionable HR Software?
It's time for Human Resources departments to review their screening practices
“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in history, with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.”
- Mitch Radcliffe
Over the past year, I’ve noticed some disturbing signs that something is seriously amiss in the job market. There are reports of ghost jobs that don’t really exist and job announcements that are not being taken down after the position is filled - but those, if true, appear to be aberrations or perhaps attempts to beef up lists in anticipation of openings.
More worrisome are the news and social media reports of job seekers expressing frustration at a noticeable change in the market. Where they once would have had several job interviews at a particular stage in a job search, now they have had only one or even none.
These do not appear to be isolated cases. The natural tendency is to blame the problem on a fragile economy that is masked by questionable Department of Labor statistics or even to blame the applicants themselves.
I believe the latter approach is a version of blaming the victims. Instead of assuming that people who have dropped out of the job market are suffering from a diminished work ethic, we should consider the possibility that something structural has gone terribly wrong in the arena of job applicant screening. If that is the case, the cause could not be isolated or sporadic. It would have to be something occurring on a regular basis at job sites across the nation.
I have a likely suspect: Applicant screening software.
In short, Human Resources departments may have installed software that is screening out large numbers of qualified job applicants.
As a management consultant, I’ve worked with HR departments for decades. When computer software became an accepted tool, there was an alarming lack of curiosity about what went on beneath the surface. [One company had a computerized test that was supposedly “test validated” to ensure that it was not discriminatory. Further inquiry revealed that its validation study was grossly inadequate.]
With experiences such as that, it is not difficult to conjure a scenario in which an HR department, bending under the burden of massive numbers of job applications largely generated by search firms, is only too eager to embrace an automatic applicant screening program. Once installed, the software program hums along like a little bee, forwarding some applicants to the interview stage but rejecting far more.
And, like so many standard operating procedures, once adopted, they are ignored, but their effects can be enormous.
Here are some obvious but serious questions: How much do we know about the people being rejected? How often does any real person look through those batches of rejected applicants to see whether someone worthy of an interview got bounced? Has the bar for admission to an interview been set too high? Are qualified applicants being filtered out before the interview stage?
There is no doubt that such programs reduce the HR workload, but does that reduction go too far?
Show me large numbers of rejected applicants and I’ll show you the potential for litigation. There is at least one class action case in federal court against a software firm that uses artificial intelligence-based tools to screen applicants. The plaintiff alleges racial, age, and disability discrimination. Part of the case focuses on whether the criteria used by the software screened out applicants on those bases.
If a form of HR screening software turns out to be the culprit, that means we have had a process in place across the country that is demoralizing millions of Americans on a daily basis. Those Americans have gotten rejection letters (or, even worse, have heard nothing) when they should have been receiving invitations to job interviews.
It is important not to underestimate the level of damage. One of the lasting lessons I acquired while investigating employment decisions (and related discrimination cases) for many years was that being rejected for a job is less jarring than being rejected for an interview. People recognize that employment decisions can rest on a flexible assortment of reasons, but those same people, when comparing their skills with the job announcement, will declare, “I at least deserved an interview.”
As a result, turning down a person for an employment interview is far more insulting and disturbing because it lumps them in with the clearly unqualified applicants and discounts their knowledge and experience.
An interview decision should not be made lightly nor should it, I would add, be casually handed over to a machine.
Smart HR departments will immediately jump on this question in order to see whether or not corrective measures are needed. Reducing the HR workload won’t be a jury-pleaser if doing so was achieved by injustice.
What can you do if you are still in the workplace but don’t work in HR? I recommend that the hiring departments ask to see the credentials and experience of a cross-section of the applicants who applied for jobs in their department but were screened out by HR software.
If no problem is found, that’s great news. But if there are problems, then the screening procedures should be changed immediately. There is no reason to be rejecting viable contenders.
While exploring this issue, I emailed an old friend who retired from HR several years ago. My initial message didn’t mention my concerns. I simply asked about brands of screening software. He provided some information on a software product that is used in his “industry” and said it screens swiftly and is well-liked.
He then wrote: “I have heard complaints from supervisors that it screens out the wrong people.”
This is not a minor matter. It has the potential of affecting the morale and strength of our nation.
Spread the word.