An Entrepreneur Should Be Aware of the Dangers in Human Resource Tech

– Prof DP Sharma –

What are the masking meters in employers and employees? It may be a matter of deep discussion and argumentation that the academic backgrounds of most people in the recruitment process are a non-tech or not? Technologies have been working as a catalyst and transforming almost every function and process of existing systems of business, governance, management, and industries. Today and tomorrow, every company or recruiter’s agency will also expect the recruitment process to adopt technology-enabled support and systems to upgrade the accuracy, precision, speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of end to end functions of the whole recruitment process.

Despite all these, three serious dangers have been observed by researchers and solution architects which are lurking behind the adoption of Human Resource(HR) tech, due to the sole reason that the recruitment function is expected to be industry agnostic or in other words a horizontal function.

It has also been observed that the academic background of most people involved in the recruitment process is usually social sciences or human resource management and rarely in science and technology. Does this imply that how a doctor can assess and evaluate the eligibility and suitability of an engineer?  Most often, people in the recruitment process have always been dependent on hiring teams for technical and functional measurement. The technological intervention in the classical practices of any system always creates the inertia towards smart adoptions. Such HR generations may listen but hard to adapt and replace their legacy systems.

A Process of AI-based Machine Matching

In this process, recruiters apply typical kinds of theory of perception. A lower capacity company can reject a higher capacity employee on the other hands a higher capacity company can be rejected by a lower capacity employee. Initially, it seems a joke but a well-known fact in the capacity market and their dynamic scenarios. Let’s apply this theory in the recruitment domain.  Everyone knows,  human beings are innately different and represent their abstract features through their Resumes or CVs even with similar qualifications and skill sets. Here, the HR professionals and recruiters should understand that the attempt to forcefully compare or match the density of certain words or manipulated phrases found in the resumes / CVs with those in the Job description is to lose the essence of both.

Today research studies are being used to reveal contemporary new knowledge or facts about the phenomenon. In general, the research studies heavily dependent on qualitative and quantitative data their measurements while assessing the individual’s skills and personality attribute. In this concern, the qualitative measurement can provide better pictures than quantitative and the reason is the nature of human data and its attributes. Resumes should not be enough to give the final judgments for a rejection or selection of a candidate until or otherwise other additional factors are scientifically evaluated. New knowledge discovery tools and emerging techniques can be an alternative mechanism like Big Data, AI and Machine or Deep Learning for better understanding of hidden insights into raw facts mentioned in the Resumes/CVs. These techniques can be better instrumental in assisting decision making processes in HR recruitments. Cumbersome rounds for evaluating the candidate’s suitability can be reduced significantly by tech which is enormously costly and delay-inducing.

The Hiring of Legacy Trends & their baseline Projections

Several companies like Naukri.Com, Monster.com and Turbo Hire etc. are trying to re-engineer their internal search engines. Their prime aim is to provide freely available technology-enabled support and systems to job seekers. These systems are designed to overcome the problems of customization and producing multiple copies of their CVs for different recruiters.

Sometimes we should use our human instinct in the decision making processes. This reveals that we should learn from history and adopt similar practices in the other way rounds. This implies that the legacy of systems and practices can be sustained for better results but it’s neither logical and nor acceptable in the current scenarios. Another perception is that “Nothing is permanent in any system except change, I mean change is the only permanent in nature- Heraclitus of Ephesus “. The solution finds its way to the CV of previously hired people and tries to find similar in the prospect pool. As an alternative logic, any economist can clarify that projections based on historical or legacy trends can be valid if and only if all the environment factors/ variables of the past are ideal and unquestionably valid in the current scenarios as well.

Based on the aforementioned quotation of Heraclitus of Ephesus 475 BC, economic and technological growth, high-level competition and the emergence of new tools and technologies, both candidates, as well as the companies, startup and their roles, will change constantly with respect to the time. These emerging tools and technologies will be the key drivers of these changes in the HR Process as well. Anyone who so ever will not be flexible and techno-savvy will be out of the race. A simple example of women with pregnancy or a person with different ability in the disability can be a better HR but in the existing legacy process of hiring are reject-able entities because we never analyzed the concept of ‘office away from the office’ over technological platforms in the context. Another worst scenario is the attitude of disciplinary boundaries and mental superiority of disciplines and portfolios. Generally, Management or HR professionals want to limit the usage and intervention of technologies or technology-enabled systems especially information and communication technologies (ICTs). They feel that these tools and techniques are trying to lose their control on their core professional processes and finally kick them out after a certain a period of time. As a matter of fact, the fear is not baseless but senseless. They have to come closer for the mutual betterments otherwise technology will lose only business opportunities but another side may lose their survival for long time sustainability.

The Comparison of the New Prospects

We should always welcome the alternative support system and technologies. This approach of machine matching Resumes/CVs of new prospects with ten best current performers in the role appears to be a solid approach and a bright idea in the direction of finding a technology-enabled or an automated solution. However, some serious flaws creep in while executing it.

Most often, while the recruiter companies have the as-received Resumes/ CVs of these ten best performers which could be 2, 4, 5 or more years older whereas what these ten performers are currently doing is rarely available as documents. In this specific scenario, the method has a serious flaw as “Historical Trend based projections” described above. Each and every entity like a human being is unique and is defined by his/her context towards the ability to plan, perform and deliver an outcome in the best possible manners even while using identical tools, techniques, and artifacts’ (a train driver is a different entity than a bus driver). Therefore, another basis to doubt this technique is that while it may work reasonably well on skills and tools front, it ignores contextual assimilation of the ten best performers and the comparison with new prospects.

If we look at the social responsibility issues, we find one of the neglected and challenged groups of differently-abled people. Their employability is question marked when they mention their physical limitations in their CVs. As per the Govt. of India directives and the law for persons with disabilities under the guidelines of UN convention 2006, they can’t be rejected for employment if they have appropriate skills and fulfill the required criteria. A young IT solution architect Deepak Agarwal returned from the USA has recently developed two solutions. One is for resolving the issues of one-to-many model of resumes/CVs for a single candidate looking for a job and another one is a job search engine specially designed for persons with different abilities in their disabilities. These two HR tech solutions will not only be a killer app but an iconic contribution to social responsibility with justice.

The Internal Team Approach

Diversity is the way of the world’s system practices. There may be a tech startup entrepreneur who has built products or services and have successful market offerings using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.  A situation when the recruiting/ hiring teams and reporting management professionals have tired of doing costly and tiring screening interviews with repeated process practices, they may feel motivated to build and adopt automated solutions to their recruitment teams. In order to motivate transformations, given the nature of non-technical folks in recruitment function and proven technology-enabled capability associated with hiring teams, it’s not very difficult to get the initiative approved and budgeted for the change. As a matter of fact, one can remember an adage that “It’s not important how long we are hiring people? It’s important that how well we are hiring the people“. However, with no deep understanding of the problem with scientific perception, these initiatives invariably end up taking one of the three approaches mentioned above. So, when and wherever you are assessing technology for hiring the right people for the right role, make sure your questions are explicitly focused and important.

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About the Author
Prof DP Sharma
Author , educationist & Consultant

Education

Ph.D., FFSFE-Germany, FIACSIT-Singapore, DB2& WSAD IBM-USA
International Consultant (IT), UN’s ILO ,International Member
Research Advisory Commission Flander’s University VUB, Belgium
National Brand Ambassador, Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission)  Http://dpsharma.info ,
*Former Academic Ambassador (AI) IBM-USA
14433424465(USA), +917339700809 (India Roaming) WhatsApp is available on both of the above numbers.

Awards, Honors & Associations
Red & White Bravery National Award for Social Courage in Anti Corruption-2002
Lifetime Achievements International Award (Sardar Ratna) for Mind of Steel in Education & Technology -2015
International Peace Ambassador Award (Shantidoot) for Peace Campaign in Cyber Space-2018

National Civil Services Chronicle Award for Outstanding Creative Writing-1997
National Merit Scholarship Award for English Proficiency -1983
Member Reviewer’s Board, Springer- Journal of Big Data-USA
Member Reviewer’s Board, Elsevier- Journal of  Applied Mathematical Modeling-Netherlands

Member Reviewer’s Board, ACM Journal – Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing- China & USA
Expat International Consultant (IT), United Nations Division ILO- Geneva Switzerland.
Expat Member, International Research Advisory Commission, VUB (Flemish Universities), Belgium (Europe)

Disclaimer : The views expressed by the author in this feature are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of INVC NEWS.

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