So why is it so hard for young people to get hired right now?
On the Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future podcast Andy Burnham blamed Zoom interviews and AI CV sifting for not giving young people the chance to express themselves in job interviews.
His argument is that they reward the polished applicant over raw talent, and stop someone’s personality coming through, which makes recruitment more unfair.
He is right that recruitment can be unfair. But I think he is wrong about the cause.
In my view the tools are not the problem. The bigger issues are hiring teams not being clear on what the real minimum requirements are when hiring for junior roles, and the overall cost of employment being prohibitive.
The problem is the requirements, not the AI
I don’t know of an AI tool that sets the criteria or the requirements for assessing candidates on its own. They either work off the job advert, the job description, or an input from the hiring team.
The tool screens against whatever criteria it is handed. If people set the wrong criteria then the wrong people get filtered out.
We often see candidates who failed qualifying questions getting hired. Up front the requirement is to have their own vehicle, but the CV looks good, they can get the bus (£2 now, thanks Andy) and they are the one that gets hired.
So it is the requirements that need looking at:
- Why are roles asking for a set number of GCSEs, or a degree, when the job does not need one
- Why do junior roles ask for experience that a junior candidate, by definition, has not had the chance to get
- Do you really need to live within x miles of the role
Often put in for good intention, or to put off unsuitable candidates. But it can mean missing out on good ones.
Fix the process and set the real minimum requirements for a role. You will open up more opportunities to more people. You also open up the talent pool for the employer, which is the part that tends to get forgotten.
I do agree with Andy Burnham to an extent on junior roles. AI screening is less useful than when it’s used on more experienced roles, simply because there are fewer data points on the CV for it to review.
That is an argument for better criteria, not for scrapping the tool.
A Zoom interview is a format, not a filter
An interview can be the problem if it is run badly, in person or on Zoom.
Some people thrive in an interview and some sink. Some are at their best in a room, others feel more comfortable at home in front of a screen. There is no single format that is fair to everyone.
So it is not the Zoom call stopping young people getting their personality across.
Tools like the Willo one-way interview, which we include in the Get Staffed ATS, often give candidates the chance to record their answers in their own time. That can let someone be more considered, and more creative, than a live call ever allows.
Beyond that, there are plenty of skills and personality assessments that measure a wider range of factors and get you closer to the right person, rather than the most rehearsed one.
But there is no one size fits all here for any role, even more junior ones. Giving candidates a chance in a couple of varied formats, if the process allows, is the best way of getting a “fairer” hiring process.
The real causes of youth unemployment
None of this is to pretend the job market is easy. It is genuinely hard for young people to get hired right now, and youth unemployment is too high.
The bigger causes sit well outside the interview room:
- Skills shortages. There is a real lack of skills in certain areas, especially more practical roles. Trades, engineers, mechanics and nursery staff are all short of suitable applicants.
- Offshoring. It is cheaper for companies to employ staff overseas, in India, South Africa or the Philippines. Big firms have done this for fifteen years and more. With Fiverr, PeoplePerHour and the shift to home working, smaller businesses can now do the same.
- The cost of employment. Employing a 22 year old on £25,000 a year in the UK costs more than £30,000 once you add National Insurance, pension, a laptop and IT, and the cost of recruiting them in the first place. The higher the cost, the less able businesses are to take a chance on young people.
Some of the new initiatives around technical education and funding for apprenticeship schemes are definitely a step in the right direction.
But AI screening tools and Zoom interviews are a long way down the list of issues causing youth unemployment. The forces holding young people back are structural, and they are far bigger than the tools sitting on top of them.
