Hiring amidst the AI fakery

While demand for green skills is increasing, the market is still challenging for many job seekers. Roles are evolving and experience doesn’t always fit requirements for new opportunities. The default has been to turn to AI, using prompts to put together a CV, covering letter, and even fill out job applications. Similarly, many hiring managers and recruiters are using AI to sift through CV’s and shortlist candidates.

It's not a bad thing to use whatever technology tools are at your disposal to try land employment or find candidates, but it is muddying the waters. Studies examining the use of AI for vetting candidates show inconsistency and bias. Even running the same CV’s through the same prompt more than once delivers different results every time. Similarly, AI is notorious for embellishing expertise and experience on a CV. With all this fakery and inconsistency, how do hiring managers find great people who can actually do the job?

Ditch the CV

It sounds extreme, but it’s actually the most effective way to side step the fabricated expertise and fluffed up keywords aimed at getting attention. From years of experience recruiting for the waste and resource industry, we’ve learned that the relationship between CV’s and on-the-job performance is actually pretty poor.

A CV lists skills, work history, past achievements. While the intention is to showcase what a candidate can do, it generally does not give the full picture. AI generated CV’s can be better written, better formatted, and gain the attention of hiring managers. The problem is that instead of making hiring easier, it’s actually making it much harder because now there’s an illusion of greatness, a belief that candidates will be an ideal fit for a role. They get hired and don’t meet expectations. Not because they don’t have the certifications or experience, but because roles in waste management require much more.

Assess for competency

Instead of relying on a CV to determine if a candidate is a good fit for a role, our approach is to test how they would actually perform on the job. Yes, for specific roles certifications are still important, as is a certain level of experience. We build on that by looking at what competencies are associated with a specific role? What skills are important? Which attitudes and behaviours separate candidates that would do okay and those that would really fly?

Over the years we’ve learned that gut feel and interview questions still don’t fill in all the gaps because the process is subjective. Having data on which to base decisions has shown to be far more effective. The challenge, however, has been finding ways to collect accurate data, designing tests where the right answers aren’t obvious, where people can’t answer in a way that sounds right, even if it doesn’t reflect their true views.

We’ve built assessments based on working experiences and then provided options that describe different approaches to the situation. There’s no wrong answer, there’s no right answer. In fact, candidates choose which action they’re most likely take, or least likely take.  Once the assessment is completed, candidates get scored on a benchmark for the role. The results show which candidates have the highest potential for success.

The value of data in hiring

This is important, because with AI is blurring reality and making it easier to manipulate results, trust in traditional ways of hiring is declining. Leaving it up to a few months on the job to determine competency is proving expensive, especially in operations roles.

A candidate may have all the Health and Safety Certifications and years of experience on the job. It doesn’t mean that they will apply that knowledge or experience in a proactive way.  Assessing behaviour and attitude, however, shows how they approach or respond to work situations. This is proving a far more effective measure of a candidate’s potential for success.

Instead of a revolving door where candidates come and go every few months, the skills-based assessment process delivers candidates that stay on average 2 years. This retention adds significant value to the company which compounds over time.

Equally, we recognise that technology is still very much needed to help us obtain the data we need to make informed hiring decisions. It also benefits hiring managers by taking the assessment process digital, meaning candidates can access it anywhere, complete the test and submit the results. Weighted against a benchmark, the data highlighting the candidates most suitable for the role can be obtained with a zero, time requirement for hiring managers.

Most people tend to place a lot of weight on technology to help us become more effective and efficient. This must be balanced with clear data, processes and outcomes. Ultimately hiring is about finding people with the skills to succeed in a role. Being able to test this before they get hired is one of the most cost and time efficient ways to do this.

If you’d like to see the WasteRecruit assessment in action, please contact Nick on nick@wasterecruit.com or Tel: 01252 353 080.