Generative AI in HR has both short to medium-term impacts and long-term implications. While the long-term effects remain uncertain, it is crucial to acknowledge the immediate consequences, particularly in talent management and talent acquisition. Although Generative AI is still in its developmental stages, it’s essential to anticipate its integration into HR practices.
Impact on Jobseekers:
Professional Development
Jobseekers are the most affected by Generative AI in HR, primarily in two key areas: professional development and job application strategies. Professional development plays a vital role in ensuring a successful career, while job application tactics are essential for immediate job acquisition. Generative AI can provide career advice to newcomers by analyzing their education, preferences, and personal qualities, guiding them in their employment choices and career negotiations.
Identifying Skill Gaps
Generative AI can assess a jobseeker’s educational and professional background, current skill set, and career aspirations to create a comprehensive development plan. This plan may include a suggested curriculum, recommended skills to acquire, and references to relevant educational resources.
Upskilling
AI platforms like ChatGPT act as versatile private tutors, enabling jobseekers not only to passively consume educational content, but also to engage in interactive discussions and ask questions about the material.
Job Application Gaming
Resumes remain a standard requirement for job applications. Generative AI can assist candidates in tailoring their resumes to match specific job descriptions, enhancing relevance, grammar, and punctuation. This capability might ultimately phase out traditional resumes in the long term.
Skill and Cognitive Testing
Online skill and cognitive assessments have always faced the risk of cheating. Generative AI provides candidates with immediate, succinct answers to knowledge, calculation, and logic questions, potentially making such assessments less valid.
Personality and Behavioral Testing
Generative AI can assist in personality testing by identifying which qualities employers prioritize based on job descriptions, employee reviews, and other sources. However, more advanced personality tests that avoid gaming are challenging to replicate. Narrow AI models, derived from specific employee success metrics, offer complex and less predictable results, minimizing biases and increasing predictive accuracy.
Impact on Employers:
Sourcing and Candidate Attraction
Generative AI enhances career sites by providing engaging and interactive chatbots that can answer questions, engage candidates, and prepare them for the application process. It can also transform bland job descriptions into compelling narratives, targeting different audiences effectively.
Screening and Assessments
Care must be taken when implementing Generative AI in screening and assessments, as the technology can perpetuate biases present in the data it learns from. Resume screening, skill testing, and aptitude testing may not benefit significantly from Generative AI.
Interviewing
While a fully automated interview process is still a futuristic concept, AI can assist by suggesting interview questions, offering post-interview follow-up recommendations, and aiding in offer negotiations. Interviews should prioritize human-to-human connections.
Career Development
Career development is gaining urgency due to candidate shortages and skill gaps. Generative AI can help upskill new hires quickly and inexpensively, offering a clear path to acquiring necessary skills and career progression within the organization. This focus on career development may begin before hiring to ensure candidates are well-prepared for their roles.
