…and 90% of what they do with it only serves to p*ss me off.
This year, I’m avoiding my usual prediction of what we’ll see in 2025. The world is so strange these days that I’m a bit over constantly being way off the mark. Instead, I’m sticking to the here and now. The above stat was shared by Recruitment Entrepreneur James Caan (remember him?) based on some data from the UK-based Recruitment & Employment Confederation. Although we don’t have that level of data here in NZ, I wouldn’t be surprised if the stats are similar.
Regardless of what you print on a t-shirt, AI is clearly here to stay. Now obviously one day it will turn on us and thrust us into a man versus machine apocalypse, but for now, and if you’re to believe the creators, it’s a bit like a dishwasher. A dishwasher is designed to do some household heavy lifting, so that we can spend more quality time with our families. In 2025 this means one person spending more of their evenings throwing potions at goblins online, and the other rekindling a high school romance via TikTok – but it’s still free time. Those who create AI in the recruitment industry claim that the purpose of their product is so that a recruiter can spend more time with suitable candidates, not less. It is to enhance the recruiter and not replace. Products range from advanced database searches (which isn’t AI), to interview “co-pilots” providing prompts, text chat based AI interviews, and actual real-time interactive interviews conducted by some weird avatar. In the US, it is already commonplace to have an interactive phone screen by an AI bot. As American’s don’t have a sense of humour and rarely make knob gags during interviews, I can see how this could work.
This is not how most recruiters use AI however.
In New Zealand, AI takes a simpler form. The vast majority of AI that I witness in this market is to do three things. And the world would be a better place if these three things were done by an actual person.
The first thing people use it for is to ask ChatGPT to write a position description. PDs are obviously the most boring things in the world, so isn’t using AI to write it the same as using a dishwasher? Well yes…but no. PDs are only boring and useless because someone made it that way and we all jumped on the bandwagon. We all labour under the idea that they need to be four pages long, so we ask ChatGPT to “write a PD for a Accounts Payable Administrator with 3 years’ experience based in Onehunga, New Zealand“. How about we sit down and spend 5 minutes bullet-pointing what we actually need someone to do and “Ta-da!” there’s your PD?
The next thing us recruiters use AI for is to write a job advert. I know I’m in the minority here, but can we not take a degree of satisfaction if not pleasure in writing an engaging ad? Something that is original and sums up the essence of our client? If you look at a job board these days, every ad has the exact same tone. And if it doesn’t, it’s because an admin person at Mainfreight wrote it in 1996 and it’s been reposted ever since. Statistically, AI written ads might “perform” better than your handcrafted missive. However, performance in the world of job boards is largely based on applicant numbers, not filling the actual role. I still believe that a well written ad has more chance of resonating with the right candidate.
Lastly, and most commonly, AI is seriously abused on LinkedIn. And it makes me want to f*cking puke. Again, this goes back to the intended purpose of AI. it is meant to replace and enhance the delivery of a necessary chore. This is not the case on LinkedIn. ChatGPT has seen people who, at most, would hit the occasional “like” but never-ever comment, become serial posters. AI hasn’t replaced something they were already doing. It’s created monsters. All of a sudden, those without an original thought in their head and the penmanship of Rocksteady and Bebop are positioning themselves as “thought leaders“. All of the posts have the same layout. The same use of emojis. The same tone. And it’s always commentary about the most vanilla of topics, written in such a way that not even Andrew Tate could disagree with it. Most of these people think their being so clever. That no one will know their little secret. Give me a break. The purpose of this might be to increase engagement, win some business, or meet some internal KPI. I care not. It makes me want to climb a bell tower in a clown suit with a sniper rifle.
I am neither for or against AI. It’s just the way the world is going. No doubt I will use it at some point in a professional capacity as I can’t afford to retire yet. I’ll never have it write content for me however. I doubt it can be obnoxious enough.
Have a good weekend.
^SW
