Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technological tool that has in recent years taken the forefront of various industries and their logistical approach to their systems.
Early versions of AI have been used en masse such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, now replaced by Bing AI.
These systems were designed more to be a personal assistant just like having a secretary in a device, minus the payroll.
The advancements of AI in recent years have pushed this technology from the voice in phones giving weather forecasts to web-based applications that can write academic papers and even animate.
However, there is a function AI provides that prevents millions of people across the globe from getting a job.
This function is most commonly referred to as a resume scanner or CV scanner.
Scanners that can analyze an applicant’s resume and other application documents such as cover letters have been used by employers as a way to sieve through these files efficiently.
These scanners typically work alongside an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to create an extremely optimized system of sorting through new applicants.
The Academic Success and Career Centre at Humber’s North Campus aims to even the playing field for students looking for employment.
Loveleen Hanjra, a career support peer at the Career Centre, helps many students almost every day improve their chances of landing a job.
Hanjra said she helps students optimize their resumes and cover letters, ensuring their LinkedIn profile is up to date, and conducting mock interviews.
“The entire purpose of all of those things is to make sure students end up getting a job,” Hanjra said.
However, Hanjra makes sure to educate students about AI scanners and ATS networks.
“Any time I have workshops I always tell students is before a human eye will see your resume, AI is looking at your resume,” she said.
The issue with these systems is that they create accessibility problems for people looking into the application process.
Hanjra said one of the most important things for increasing your chances of getting an interview is tailoring your CV to each job utilizing keywords found in the job description.
In addition to keywords, another important aspect of a resume is structure.
“I do believe the skills section is the most important section,” she said. “The skills section needs to be at the very top.”
Alongside human assistance, the Career Centre also offers AI with capabilities similar to the large ATS networks many companies use today.
This program is called Devant and is used by multiple post-secondary institutions to help students optimize their CVs.
According to Devant Humber’s CV scanner page, CV360 scores an uploaded CV with more than 50 checks that can cause an ATS to run into issues with your application.
Students seem to be willing to fight fire with fire, utilizing Devant’s AI to satisfy the algorithms of employers’ combination of AI and ATS.
Malcolm Lea, a second-year Media and Communications student at the University of Guelph-Humber, is open to the idea of using AI as an aid for applying for jobs.
“If you’re looking at it purely as a tool that allows you to format and structure things, it gives you insight on stuff that you may not have seen before,” Lea said.
Lea said on the other side of the application process, companies using AI to sort through data can miss out on critical details about applicants.
“There’s a lot of things that you can’t get just from raw data alone,” he said. “You need to have a human perspective when looking at another person’s resume, there’s things an AI can’t take into consideration like holistic things.”
The inability of AI to detect human traits has taken its toll on millions.
A Harvard study said that inflexibly configured automated recruitment systems are partly responsible for the 27 million “hidden workers” residing in the United States.
The SMB Guide offers a list of their choice of best ATSs for Canadian businesses.
“AI is one of those things where it’s going to happen, it’s a tool that’s being incorporated with everything there’s no really stopping it,” Lea said.