How to Prevent Cheating with AI During the Hiring Process
New technology, like artificial intelligence (AI), is exciting—but it comes with downsides as well. ChatGPT has made a range of tasks easier, and that includes making it easier for job applicants to cheat throughout the hiring process.
That cheating might look like filling in a job application with an AI tool, creating an enhanced resume with ChatGPT or a similar tool, using AI to answer skills assessment tests, or writing a cover letter with the help of AI. Whatever form it takes, the accessibility of AI is definitely making it more challenging for HR teams to determine who is truly qualified for open roles, and who just seems that way because they’re AI-savvy.
But you don’t need to conduct an in-depth investigation into who is potentially using AI tools when you’re hiring—you simply need to consider adjusting your hiring process to prioritize pieces that can’t be faked with AI. Here are the best ways to prevent cheating on employee assessments for HR professionals to consider.
Use Soft Skill Assessments to Predict Success
It’s possible to fake hard skills for the technical requirements of a job with AI tools. But it’s much more challenging to use AI to pretend to possess critical soft skills such as good communication and strategic thinking. And those skills are harder to train, so they’re more important to hire for—you can teach someone how to use software, but it’s much more difficult to teach them to cooperate and collaborate effectively.
Rethinking your hiring process to prioritize soft skills can help prevent job applicant cheating. You can still consider and test for hard skills, of course, but put more weight on soft skills and consider investing more in training where needed for hard skills once you’ve made the hire.
Reduce Reliance on Resumes and Cover Letters
Resumes and cover letters can be burnished (or even entirely created) with the help of AI now. It’s time to put less importance on them as hiring tools. In fact, there’s a strong argument to be made that resumes aren’t really needed for many positions at all. And lying on resumes pre-dates the rise of AI.
Instead, focus on what you’re trying to get out of cover letters and resumes. Checking educational credentials is worthwhile, but you can contact the educational institution yourself instead of trusting a resume. And you should always check references as well as part of your hiring process.
Use 1:1 Video Interviewing
Written answers will always be more susceptible to job applicant cheating with AI, but there’s as of yet no tool that can conduct an interview for a candidate. That’s why 1:1 video interviews are so crucial to the hiring process. Scheduling face-to-face interviews is great, of course, but it can significantly slow your hiring process, so using video tools helps you get the benefits of personal interviews with greater speed.
You can use the interview to check any information an applicant has given you, like reviewing their hard skills and asking related questions to see how they answer off the cuff. By asking structured interview questions, you can gain a deeper understanding of how the candidate’s soft skills are, and see if their answers match up to their cover letter and resume. It’s not foolproof, but your intuition as a recruiter or hiring manager can tell you when something doesn’t quite match up.
Looking for an all-in-one platform that enables you to test for hard and soft skills, conduct video interviews, and evaluate candidates holistically? Cangrade can help—our solution is challenging to cheat, even with ChatGPT, and it’s certified bias-free as well. Try it today.