There is a lot of noise about how AI – specifically generative AI and AI agents – is already halfway towards revolutionising how we work, how we create and how we collaborate.

From coding to customer service, from marketing to sales, NLP programmes are making immediate, critical inroads into previously human-centric operations. 

The possibilities beyond this explosion in generative AI (and the presumption that a working AGI is only around the corner) extend the horizon of what AI can do for more complex tasks, such as iterative problem solving and high-level reasoning.

So within this hysteria of disruption, where are the details around how AI will make workplaces better for everyone? 

After all, the main benefit of integrating AI into workplace processes is to reduce the mundane, automate the repetitive, and allow humans to do what humans do best – create, reason, collaborate, ideate, laterally generate ideas, build relationships and create genuine emotional connections between people, products, services and theories.

Amidst the contradictory thought pieces and think tank panics about AI, what seems to be somewhat lost in the mania is how AI can help build more equitable, fair workplaces for many millions of people who are forgotten or incapable of integrating into analogue workplaces. 

So can we create a future where AI is used for good, or are the tech naysayers right in assuming AI will only be used for illicit gains in easily manipulated industries, deep fakes, crypto-scams and hyper-capitalism?

Let’s dive into it.

Diversity, equity, and how AI can help.

According to author and Forbes contributor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, AI will help diversity in two ways.

• “The first is to diagnose things better, telling us what truly goes on in a culture, revealing some of the hidden dynamics underlying many of the critical interactions between people at work”.
• “The second is being able to actually measure inclusion, in particular, whether someone’s demographic status or identity can predict their actual status at work”.

The analytical power of modern AI programmes “allows us to go beyond perceptions”, giving change makers and leaders insight into “biases in behaviour”. AI fills a gap between what we think is happening, and what really is happening, or what could happen, based on evidence. AI can supplement emotionally driven HR decision making with evidently based logic, which in the case of diversity hiring, network management and fair representation can only be a good thing.

Bridging this evidence/emotion gap is the only way to build HR functionality based on real, performance-driven equity, based on real-time data. That data, and the ability to parse it, is the real power behind how AI can assist in creating a representative workforce.

Of course, this doesn’t mean AI should be used on a whim – there is ample evidence that poor AI implementation can break laws and entrench biases, so oversight is key. 

It’s worth reading pieces, such as this article by Fast Company, on the pros and cons of using AI for diversity hiring practices.

Inclusivity, disability and how AI can help.

As this detailed report by Accenture titled AI for disability inclusion puts it, there are several things business leaders and AI developers both can do to help foster more inclusivity in workplaces, especially around disability access and using tech to help people work more productively.

At the very basic level it starts at the design phase. AI creators need to put “inclusive design principles in place to support “human + machine” collaboration (which is) essential to the development of fair and unbiased AI solutions”. Inclusive AI by design is the foundation of inclusive AI use. 

So what does this inclusive design look like in real life? Well, it can be a poisoned chalice but again with the right leadership and strategy AI can be a blessing. 

• “Biases often occur at the intersections of disability, race, gender, and other identities”, which means whatever and however AI is developed it has to be built around reducing bias between underrepresented and vulnerable groups, rather than exacerbating them.
• AI can help build more inclusive workplaces. For example AI platforms can provide better testing and pre-interview assessments, AI-based accessibility tools such as speech-to-text transcription and sign language into text systems, AI-driven employee feedback, AI-augmented accessible interview processes and AI-augmented language accessibility tools. 

The tools of the future can be implemented today to help those most in need of that extra layer of support.

Minority recruitment and AI. 

This piece by the Data Scientist neatly summarises how AI can help elevate minority hires in the recruitment funnel. 

But much of the theory behind diversity-focused hiring strategies – such as blind screenings and automated assessments – has been known for years. It’s how they’re evolving via AI that HR pros need to be aware of.

• The real power lies in how AI improves data-driven recruitment. AI can operate between a wide array of recruiting tools such as jobs boards, social media, applicant tracking systems and recruitment CRMs seamlessly, to better communicate in real-time with specific candidates on the nature of targeted jobs, or clients on the state of play with candidate funnels and minority talent availability. 

• AI can create more accurate predictions on candidate suitability and hiring success utilising data, and can better identify patterns in background, experience and assessment viability. 
• Coupled with in-house NLP (like ChatGPT plugins), AI becomes more than an automated extra – they become an assistant recruiter in all but name, able to seamlessly and immediately dive into entire recruiting networks to matchmake in real-time.

With the right sort of oversight (and a fixation on making sure bias-free searches are run), AI can be the diversity hiring partner every recruiter needs. 

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best recruitment and talent acquisition technologies to suit your needs. 

From Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM comparison, to vendor snapshots, and technology showcases in our unique technology marketplace, we provide fee-free tools to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business!

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While our primary service, Rectect Compare, gives recruiters the chance to compare recruitment software from our partnerships with ATS and recruitment CRM vendors, behind it lies a resolute mission: to help recruitment leaders utilise great tech to connect with, communicate with, and hire talented people. ATS and recruitment CRM comparison becomes a metaphor for effective talent comparison.

When broken down into its constituent parts, we like to think we also make the process of job seeking easier and fairer too.

We do this in two ways – via our vendor partnerships, ATS, and recruitment CRM comparison services (which helps employers perfect their talent acquisition and build more agile, more efficient cultures of hiring), and through a more holistic understanding of recruitment, the culture of work, and what candidates want from a modern workplace and career.

Our founder Rob spent 15 years working in frontline recruitment, recruitment tech integration, HR, talent acquisition and personnel management, in both in-house rec and agency. He knows his way around hiring, recruitment strategies, and HR leadership, and has used that to better interrogate and highlight exactly what features of what applicant tracking system and CRM platforms provide the most value to employers and HR teams in any industry.

This is the foundation of Rectec – a true appreciation, and long serving experience, of recruiting.

With that in mind, we wanted to share our advice on using failure to fuel success, especially when it comes to career stalling, or feeling like a failure in work.

If the last couple of years have taught the recruiting world anything it’s that no job seeking trend stays fixed for long, and that many millions of workers across almost every industry have spent a lot of time soul searching in the wake of COVID-19, lockdowns, isolation and, in some awful circumstances, redundancy.

Hence, the power and fury of the global Great Resignation.

The current job market can seem overwhelming for a job seeker – with so many employers clamouring for talent, and so many recruiters working overtime to serve their client base from a dwindling talent pool, the market can, rather conversely, create a sense of waywardness and panic. And, when you’re reeling from the feeling that your current job isn’t right for you, or that you’re failing in your current career, the market can feel even less welcoming and more impersonal.

But from a feeling of failure can come the bloom of success. It takes a bit of self belief, a little bit of planning, and some bravery. But from it, you can secure a happier future. Here’s how:

The world isn’t against you. Work with it!

When you feel like you’re on the wrong path in your career it can feel like work, and the environment and cultures of your current work, are set up to make you fail.

Our advice is to rise above resentment and focus on the things you can fix, and things you can’t.

• Things you can fix – like self-awareness, practising self-mastery, manifesting new paths and futures, creating vision boards – focus the mind and create positive patterns of thought and action.
• Things you can’t fix – the culture of your boss and workplace, the opinions of other work colleagues, fixed attitudes to your work and your person – should be discarded.

Then you have a basis for positive action. You have a mindset based on growth – the visceral, literal things you can touch and feel, that you have control over and that you can change – they form the basis of your new job seeking mindset.

The end result of discarding this resentment from your mind is a more positive mental framework to find what does make you happy in work. The last thing you want to do is reach out into the live employers market with a chip on your shoulder and negativity in your heart.

Stay focused on what you can change, and forget the rest.

Analyse opportunity by career proximity

What we mean by this is look at your next step systematically, rather than chucking a hail mary CV into a jobs board. While that strategy may work in filling your inbox with recruiter platitudes and bad job offers, it doesn’t offer quality reassurance that your next move is the right move.

What you need to do is build a job seeking growth mindset – that means analysing opportunity from the position of betterment, rather than escape from your current role.

So, we advise you analyse opportunity – literally make a list through research, recruiter outreach, and job board searching – through three “career proximity and consideration” lenses:

• Nearby – what opportunities does your current job – or competitors within your sector – have that may move your career in the right way
  • Considerations: Is this a sector you still want to work in? What are your new goals?
• Closeby – what opportunities are in your area, industry or network that may be of interest? This includes lateral career moves, for example from Sales into Customer Service.
  • Considerations: Is this where you want to work? What do you need to work on skillswise to make a lateral move?
• Far away – what completely outlier opportunities exist that you have a desire to know more about, but don’t know anything about?
  • Considerations: do these opportunities engage you or excite you? Can you commit to a complete change of working environment?

Communicate often, diligently, and widely

No matter where you feel opportunity lies in relation to your career proximity, communication is the vehicle in which you create reality from opportunity.

It sounds like such a basic, bog standard statement but diligence is the key here. And as much as we advocate for great tech and innovation, there is no replacing or automating a true quality recruiters relationship.

Diligence means following your proximity analysis and choosing to commit to communicating consistently with people within your chosen network, be that nearby networks of co-professionals in your line of work, or far away networks.

Be patient with yourself, and be kind to yourself – use communication to open the door, and let your personality shine. Take it from us – almost every employer in the UK and beyond wants to engage new talent, so use that as your confidence builder. There has never been a better time to drop an email into an HR team’s inbox and build rapport.

Finally, trust the process – there will be opportunities that fall through the cracks, and there will be heartbreaking last minute about-turns from great employers who will choose another person over you for that final spot on the team. What the above does is simply puts you in the right mindset to manifest success, and un-stall your career progress. That is the process!

A quick, responsive process is what you need to attract and engage the best talent.

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best Applicant Tracking System or best Recruitment CRM to suit your needs, accompanied by our unique complimentary tech marketplace, to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business.

You can click here to register for Rectec Compare – and best of all, it’s completely free of charge.

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