Employers often pursue diversity goals for their own organizational purposes, and these goals could be inadvertently thwarted by focusing on technology as a solution to staffing needs. Companies that use the Internet for recruitment should therefore also use other sources to locate employees, especially those that attract candidates from protected groups. These sources include newspapers, magazines, radio and television, and other media accessible to groups that may not otherwise have information about employment opportunities. Online recruitment can complement current recruitment technologies instead of replacing them completely. Tom McCarthy is a partner in Weil`s Employment Litigation practice. He represents and advises employers on a variety of labor law matters, including restrictive contract and trade secret disputes, collective bargaining and labor disputes, breach of contract and termination disputes, and wage, schedule, and employment discrimination claims in federal and state courts and arbitration proceedings. Mr. McCarthy regularly works with senior executives, human resources managers and other legal and human resources professionals and has published articles on a variety of labour law topics. Mr.
McCarthy also has a strong pro bono practice and advises a number of not-for-profit organizations on employment and employment law matters. But the use of new technologies for decisions traditionally made by humans could have growing pains, including unintentional discrimination. Fortunately, civil rights enforcement agencies in the workplace are like the United States. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice anticipate this potential problem and have taken steps to address it. In the context of the use of the computer, it is less justified to fill it by online recruitment. The use of computer processing power in the selection and hiring process is not a new phenomenon. In fact, for several decades, employers and recruitment agencies have been using simple text searches to search for resumes submitted in response to job postings. This text-based search has given way to more complex algorithms that do more than just search for identified keywords. For example, Ideal, an “AI-powered talent selection and matching system,” has the ability to understand and compare experiences across resumes to determine which candidate`s work history best meets the requirements of an open position. Some companies, like LinkedIn Recruiter and ZipRecruiter, are introducing AI into the equation even earlier, scouring social media and the public profiles of millions of people to determine if a job posting is even advertised for a particular candidate.
Two recent publications come from the EEOC and DOJ with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the use of software, algorithms and artificial intelligence to evaluate applicants and employees and algorithms, artificial intelligence and discrimination against people with disabilities in hiring. These focus on discrimination on the basis of disability, but this is probably just the beginning. Just as COVID-19 has accelerated the transition of many employers to flexible hours, the national transition to more regular arrangements for working from home is likely to accelerate the adoption of AI tools in the recruitment, interviewing and hiring process. To the extent that employers are considering using such tools internally or through a recruitment company, they should be aware of certain issues: electronic technology is not only useful for recruiting employees, but it also has the ability to conduct in-depth selection activities. For example, Coopers & Lybrand eliminates about a quarter of its initial requests through online contact (College Press Service, 1997). Once HR managers have identified predictors of performance, organizational retention, and positive work-related attitudes (Vecchio 19961), the company can conduct an online selection test. To carry out the procedure, the recruiter provides the candidate with an internet address and password. The candidate then follows a simple guide that guides them through the test. Depending on the organizational system, test results are processed either internally by the organization or by an external subcontractor. In some cases, the service provider collects the information in a database and provides the customer with the raw information as well as some analysis. The organization may use the information and other selection tools to make an informed decision about the candidate. With respect to civil rights specifically, it can be argued that the impact of technology on racial employment is significant, either because minorities do not have access to computers or because they do not have the skills to use online recruitment.