Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Javid Muhammedali, VP of Artificial Intelligence at Bullhorn (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: My question was, is your AI at a point where people can be replaced with software?

Javed Muhammedali: I don’t believe so. I’ll explain it like this. If you have a car and it has the side mirror warning, front mirror warning, and backup cameras, is there a hypothetical scenario where you can conjure a workflow where every part of the workflow is fully automated?

I suppose that’s possible, but that’s going to be the exception and not the norm. In every workflow, there will be some parts of the process that will be automated, with other parts of the process where you still need a recruiter to step in.

If you’re hiring a lot of high-volume retail workers, you might automate a lot of the front-end of the process and only step in at the last two or three stages. If you’re reaching out to a Senior Director or VP level hire, you might automate the back-end of the process where the on-boarding is seamless, but you spend a lot more time on its front-end.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. I do think there’re opportunities for automation in every hiring workflow but not end-to-end.

Sramana Mitra; I don’t think I agree with you. 

Javed Muhammedali: You disagree from the standpoint that every part can be automated?

Sramana Mitra: I’m saying that huge amounts can be automated. Think about it. Especially for the example that you gave like blue-collar recruitment, you should know what you’re looking for. If you’ve hired enough of these people, you don’t need recruiters to sit and interview every person.

If it’s very customized and high-end people, that may be different. If you’re hiring 50 programmers to staff a project, you just need to figure out what those skillsets are and test people for that skillset.

There are soft skills but it’s not that complicated to automate the recruitment of these people. If you’re telling me that that’s not happening, I would question why.

Javed Muhammedali: I’m not saying it shouldn’t happen. I don’t have a strong opinion on how much a customer should automate. All I was saying is that each customer understands their business a lot better than a systems approach. I know of several use cases.

For example, substitute teachers in a school district. You already have a pool of pre-qualified teachers. There are many different ways to solve that use case. In some ways, Uber is a fully-automated staffing solution. You’re in this location and you need a driver. There’s some pre-processing that has already happened.

If a client wants full automation, I’d figure out which parts can be pre-processed so you have a specific pool of candidates that you, at some level, trust. You can run full automation on top of that pool. Where it may fall off is when people try to do full automation on a completely unvetted pool.

Sramana Mitra: In general, the recruitment industry is one that is going to get completely offended in the next 10 to 20 years. 

Javed Muhammedali: You might be more bullish on this for sure. I can see why you would take that stand. 

Sramana Mitra: Great. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Javid Muhammedali, VP of Artificial Intelligence at Bullhorn
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