Ethical factors in using artificial intelligence in recruiting

Abstract

The use of artificial intelligence has changed the way of doing things in many different areas of business. Recruiting is not an exception in this matter. There are many different applications for AI in different recruiting processes. This also raises questions about different ethical issues, and how they are handled in companies. This thesis aims to find out the main ethical issues in using artificial intelligence in recruiting. Therefore, the thesis will come up with factors that should be taken into consideration when developing recruiting services that use artificial intelligence.

The thesis studies the research question both through literature review and interviews. The literature review focuses on defining artificial intelligence, looks at how it is used in recruiting, and the ethical challenges of both artificial intelligence and recruiting. The interviews were conducted with two industry experts from Barona Oy – a company that develops recruiting services that use artificial intelligence.

The thesis comes to the finding of five different important factors to take into consideration: who is involved to the development process, what are the frames and rules for the AI, what is the quality of the data used, how is the AI supervised, and how transparently the AI is used. Their practical implications are also further discussed. It also discussed how the fact that there is only a little research done on the subject has limited the research of this thesis.