AI in HR

Employment decisions affect people’s opportunities and require careful attention to relevance, fairness, privacy, accessibility, and applicable law. A ranking is not a neutral fact about a person.

Key takeaways

• Define job-related outcomes.
• Test fairness, accessibility, and privacy.
• Keep accountable human review and recourse.

Define the job-related outcome and the human decision-maker. Screening, performance support, scheduling, and workforce forecasting have different implications. Avoid labels that simply reproduce past hiring or promotion decisions without checking whether they reflect the qualifications and outcomes the organization actually needs.

Evaluate error rates and opportunities across relevant groups and accommodations. A model can disadvantage people through proxies, inaccessible assessments, or data missing for a group. Test the complete application and review process, not only the model’s score.

Inform candidates and employees appropriately, protect personal data, and provide a meaningful way to correct inaccurate records or request accommodation. Keep a trained human reviewer with authority to challenge the recommendation.

Document vendor claims, model versions, data sources, thresholds, and decisions. Monitor outcomes after deployment and consult current employment law and qualified experts for the jurisdiction and specific practice.

1. Imagine training on past hires where one department rarely interviewed career changers.
2. A model may learn that pattern and rank those applicants lower without measuring job capability.
3. Review the label, include relevant outcomes, and assess the complete process for unjustified disparities.

The constructed example shows how historical decisions can become a misleading target.