AI Impact on Entry Level Jobs Overstated Says Incoming CIPD Chief

Media reports claiming that artificial intelligence is eliminating entry level graduate jobs have been dramatically overstated, according to Neil Carberry, incoming chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Carberry, who takes leadership of the HR professional body later this month following his tenure as chief executive of the UK Employment and Recruitment Confederation, noted that entry level positions in Ireland are only slightly weaker this year compared to last.

The primary issue facing the job market is not the destruction of roles, but rather an increasingly convoluted recruitment process driven by automated tools on both sides of the hiring table.

“Entry-level roles in Ireland this year are probably a little weaker than they were last year, but only a little weaker,” Carberry said. “What is happening, though, is the process of job search and recruitment at entry level is becoming incredibly convoluted. You’ve got AI being used by candidates to maximise output; you wouldn’t quite say ‘spray and pray,’ but certainly a sense that ‘I’ve got to throw the net as wide as I can to try to catch some fish’.”

On the other side of the equation, employers are resorting to automated screening tools to cope with the surge of incoming applications. Speaking at a CIPD organized and Government supported event attended by senior HR managers from about forty major employers, Carberry explained that this dynamic is creating intense frustration for both jobseekers and employers.

Applicants are routinely left without feedback on why their applications failed, while companies struggle to identify top talent hidden within thousands of submissions.

“So, I talk to lots of businesses who say, ‘I just can’t hire young people’, and at the same time I talk to lots of young people who say, ‘I can’t get a job. I’ve done 500 applications.’ That’s why it feels incredibly important that we rethink entry-level hiring, why it’s a really robust area for Government and businesses to be working together.” Long Term Need for Junior Talent Industry leaders at the seminar emphasized the necessity of maintaining graduate and junior talent pipelines, even as stakeholders press for rapid financial returns on AI investments.

Brad Mallard, chief technology officer at tech and AI consultancy Version 1, cautioned that companies viewing AI purely as a means to trim headcount and lower recruitment costs are taking a short sighted view.

“Over time, in the mid to longer term, you need those more, the juniors, to be able to progress on and to learn the jobs so you don’t have problems around attrition and retention of knowledge. We will see the nature of roles change, but what won’t go away is the engagement and the problem-solving characteristics and the curiosity that you still need people to bring.”

Mallard noted that while repetitive tasks within junior and analyst roles will be automated, core human capabilities remain irreplaceable. He pointed out that even major technology firms that initially cut junior recruitment often find themselves hiring early career workers back once the limitations of automated systems become apparent.

“You can’t replace that. So, elements of every role, especially junior roles and analyst roles, will change, and at the moment some people are sort of going: ‘Great, we can reduce our costs and improve our margins’. But what we see even in the biggest technology companies is [that] while they go through that loop very quickly, they then realise they need people back because the technology doesn’t quite do everything they need: the context setting; the people-to-people engagement; [and] asking the right questions.”

Source: The Irish Times