Interviewed by a machine

L'Espresso has an interesting and somewhat chilling piece on using an AI system called HireVue to screen people for job interviews. The original piece is in Italian - quotes below are Google translations.

Do you want to work? Convince the computer. The algorithm selects the personnel selection

The large US and multinational companies that select managers increase through interactions with a computer that "spies" mimics and tone of voice. Thanks to an application created by a twenty year old...

HireVue is able to monitor about 15 thousand traits of a person, including the choice of language, eye movements, response speed and stress level. Furthermore, it is a program that "learns" and by coding the traits of the talents that are selected allows you to find them in future candidates. Every company in this way refines its database for finding the best candidate.

The advantages are obvious but so are the dangers. For example, according to promotional material the system is capable of treating diversity as a positive hiring parameter. Other biases are easily imagined, as are other uses.

In Great Britain Vodafone has examined 50 thousand candidacies for "junior" positions but now intends to make use of the same program also for the selection of senior managers. Unilever thanks to Artificial Intelligence has evaluated 275 thousand applications, of which about half were stopped at the first step due to a series of online "games" designed to measure concentration ability under pressure and short-term memory. And only a third of the remaining participants were invited to the final video interview (always with HireVue). Mike Clementi, Unilever America's vice-president for Human Resources is enthusiastic: "With a portfolio of more than 400 brands we could no longer continue to hire in a traditional way".