The short answer
Let AI do the sorting and the admin, and keep the decisions about people with people. AI is useful for searching, summarising, asking the same pre-screening questions, drafting messages, booking calls and sending reminders. A person decides who goes forward, builds the shortlist, talks to the client, and makes or approves every offer and every rejection. Write that split on one page, tell candidates about it, and check it whenever a tool changes.
Why it is worth fixing
The big recruiting platforms are building AI agents into their tools. LinkedIn says its next-generation Hiring Assistant reaches existing customers who use Hiring Assistant in English automatically, for free, from November. It brings together whether a candidate is verified, insights from applicant tracking systems, pre-screening answers and work experience, and LinkedIn says it has a deeper understanding of how recruiters hire, down to the individual recruiter. LinkedIn also reports, from its own figures, that recruiters using Hiring Assistant review far fewer profiles to find qualified matches.
UK candidates are wary. In Morgan McKinley’s global AI survey, a sizeable minority of UK respondents said they would be less likely to apply if AI screening is used, and most of the UK employers surveyed avoid AI in hiring entirely, though the employer sample was small. The firm’s advice for the UK and Ireland is strict human oversight and a transparent process.
Step by step
List every place AI touches your hiring
Include the obvious tools and the quiet ones: job boards that rank applicants, matching features in your applicant tracking system, chat tools your consultants use to draft messages, and anything that pre-screens. You can’t write a policy for tools you haven’t listed.
Write down what AI does
Keep this to tasks where a mistake is easy to spot and put right: searching for and suggesting candidates, summarising a profile, asking everyone the same pre-screening questions, drafting messages for a person to send, booking calls, sending reminders and keeping records tidy.
Write down what a person does
A person decides who goes forward and who doesn’t, builds the shortlist a client sees, holds the client conversation, makes or approves every offer and every rejection, and handles anything unusual, such as a request for an adjustment or a complaint. If nobody can explain a decision in their own words, it isn’t ready to be made.
Make the human review a real one
A person clicking “approve” on whatever the tool suggests is not a review. Give reviewers the candidate’s actual answers, not just a score or a ranking, and time to read them. Now and then, look at candidates the tool placed low as well as those it placed high.
Tell candidates, in plain words
Put a short line in the advert and the first email, and adapt it so it is true for you: “We use AI tools to help organise applications and arrange calls. A member of our team reviews every application and makes every decision. If you would like to know more, or need any adjustment to our process, reply to this email.” Employers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and gov.uk lists changes to the recruitment process among them.
Review the page when tools change
Platforms add AI features often, and some arrive automatically. Name one person to check what has changed every few months and update the page. The government’s Responsible AI in Recruitment guide has good questions to ask suppliers, and the ICO, the UK data regulator, lists updated recruitment and selection guidance as due this winter.
Checklist
- Every tool that uses AI in your hiring is listed
- One page says what AI does and what a person does
- No candidate is turned down or put forward by software alone
- Reviewers see the candidate’s answers, not only a score
- Adverts and first emails say how AI is used and how to ask for an adjustment
- One named person reviews the page when a tool changes
When it is worth getting help
The one-page split is something you can write yourself in an afternoon. It is worth getting help when you want the admin side automated, such as acknowledgements, reminders and moving information between your systems, while the decisions stay with your team, or when you need a clear record of who decided what.
Rec Int. builds automation for the admin side of UK recruitment agencies, around the systems they already run.
Questions people ask
Should we tell candidates we use AI?
Yes. UK candidates are wary of AI screening, and a plain line about what the tool does and who decides is easy to add. Make sure the line is true for your process.
Will LinkedIn’s new Hiring Assistant make the decisions for us?
LinkedIn describes it as recommending candidates, running pre-screening and managing a talent pool. What you do with its suggestions is up to you: our view is to let it sort, and keep the decision on who goes forward with a person.
Sources
- Reasonable adjustments for workers with disabilities or health conditions GOV.UK
- Responsible AI in Recruitment guide GOV.UK
- LinkedIn announces the next generation of Hiring Assistant, its hiring agent LinkedIn Pressroom
- Global AI report: key workplace AI trends Morgan McKinley
- Our plans for new and updated guidance: general data protection ICO
If you would like to talk through which parts of your hiring admin could be automated while the decisions stay with your team, book a discovery call.