Using AI To Help Hire?

It is expected that AI either already is or will become a routine part of recruiting and hiring, perhaps eventually even helping to manage performance. The use of AI is likely to help ease the administrative burden to screen applications and even conducting first interviews. But it is likely to also increase risk for disparate impact claims.

The EEOC has issued guidance on just this point. The new guidance relies on the 1978 Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, which generally require validity studies be done to ensure that characteristics being measured are reliable indicators of successful performance in the job.

As a quick refresher, disparate impact occurs when a facially neutral employment practice (such as using AI to screen applications to determine who meets minimum standards) results in disproportionately screening out people of a certain protected category (such as people forty or older) or a combination of protected categories (for