By Julia Love
Alphabet Inc.’s Google pitches its artificial intelligence tools to corporate clients as a way to more quickly sift through a mountain of job applications to find the most promising candidates. Some of its own AI researchers don’t want to rely on these tools when recruiting.
Google DeepMind’s AGI Safety and Alignment Team, which seeks to mitigate the risks of advanced AI, is encouraging job candidates for its open roles to fill out a special form alongside their application to eliminate the risk it may be automatically screened out by the company’s internal AI systems, according to a document viewed by Bloomberg, which contained the disclaimer “PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THIS DOC WIDELY.”
“We have an applications system with a non-trivial probability your CV will be screened out incorrectly or take too long to reach us,” the document states. “Filling out this form makes sure that a real human on the team will get to see your application.”
A Google DeepMind spokesperson said the company aims to “recruit and hire the most qualified talent at Google DeepMind” and denied that the company’s systems filter out applicants incorrectly. “This team set up a special form to go past the recruiter review, and get their resumes direct to the people on the team. But there are no shortcuts to getting hired,” the spokesperson added.
AI has rapidly become a part of the hiring process, prompting some HR teams to worry they may soon be out of a job. But how that AI is employed can be murky. Some companies run AI models to rank applicants, while others filter resumes for key terms.
Google’s Workspace team, which sells popular products such as Google Drive to businesses, markets the company’s new AI features as a way to “save HR time by quickly creating drafts for job postings, evaluating resumes, and forecasting hiring needs.”
AI hiring systems have also come under fire for potentially discriminating against candidates. A Bloomberg investigation found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT showed signs of potential bias based on applicants’ names. And Workday Inc., which sells workplace management software, is facing a lawsuit that alleges its AI hiring systems screen applicants based on race, age and disability in violation of the law. Workday has denied the allegations and said humans make hiring decisions. The company did not respond to an additional request for comment.
Meanwhile, some job candidates are using AI to their advantage by gaming the filters, or simply churning out applications in record time. The Google DeepMind team was on guard about this possibility as well, counseling candidates that their applications would be stronger without the help of AI.
The form designed to circumvent automated screening includes an advisory: “A real human will read these. These humans get really tired of reading LLM answers, because they all sound very samey.”
