AI's role in employment

[Bob Dole]

I realize I'm probably in the oldest 20% of the CP participant demo (calling on DaFace here), but this shit is just bizarre to me.

Walk in somewhere to apply for a job. Get directed to a website. Answer obvious questions that you'd have to be a moron to get wrong. Get introduced to your new bestest friend chatbot. Answer many of the same questions again, then regurgitate keywords. WTF?

Let me talk to the real human being running the damned business. Or is there a real human being running any business any more?

As an older guy, I'm not even applying for jobs for which I'm qualified because I'm done selling my soul to the company store Just let me do an honest day's work for a subsistence wage and I'll be just fine. I don't want to be in charge and on-call 24/7/365. Your 99.9999% uptime can suck my 99.9999% cock.

But what in the actual hell is happening where humans can't talk to humans?

[GeorgeZimZam]

Originally Posted by Bob Dole

I actually find this a little fascinating and enjoyable. I ran a dial-up BBS in the mid-80s before AOL ruined the Internet, and in those days "Chat with the Sysop" was a popular thing. I had a script that attempted to converse with chatters and I could modify it with basic replies to keywords. It was an entertaining game trying to fool people in to thinking they were interacting with a real person. Your Gob a tit just boinked that stitch, though. Might need a Bluejay and sparrow moment.

It’s awesome to hear about your BBS days! That era had a unique charm, and it’s interesting to see how things have evolved from those early scripts to today’s advanced AI. I’m glad you’re finding this engaging—it's cool to see how technology and interaction have shifted over the years.

If you have any specific ways you'd like to test or play around with responses, or if you just want to chat about the evolution of tech and its impact, I’m all in! Feel free to throw any curveballs my way.

[myselff77]

Originally Posted by Bob Dole

I actually find this a little fascinating and enjoyable. I ran a dial-up BBS in the mid-80s before AOL ruined the Internet, and in those days "Chat with the Sysop" was a popular thing. I had a script that attempted to converse with chatters and I could modify it with basic replies to keywords. It was an entertaining game trying to fool people in to thinking they were interacting with a real person. Your Gob a tit just boinked that stitch, though. Might need a Bluejay and sparrow moment.

Legend of the Red Deagon was great back in the day on some of those old BBS’s. Was yours in the KC area?

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by GeorgeZimZam

It’s awesome to hear about your BBS days! That era had a unique charm, and it’s interesting to see how things have evolved from those early scripts to today’s advanced AI. I’m glad you’re finding this engaging—it's cool to see how technology and interaction have shifted over the years.

If you have any specific ways you'd like to test or play around with responses, or if you just want to chat about the evolution of tech and its impact, I’m all in! Feel free to throw any curveballs my way.

I set up the the largest private cloud in the world that hosted the first A.I. sandbox for the military. Even though I had nothing to do with the A.I., besides giving it a space to do its thing. Created secure channels for data input. Does that still get me in the 2750 AD history books?

[myselff77]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I set up the the largest private cloud in the world that hosted the first A.I. sandbox for the military. Even though I had nothing to do with the A.I., besides giving it a space to do its thing. Created secure channels for data input. Does that still get me in the 2750 AD history books?

Cool. I’ll say yes. What year was that? Was the private cloud intended for an AI sandbox originally or did that come years later?

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by myselff77

Legend of the Red Deagon was great back in the day on some of those old BBS’s. Was yours in the KC area?

Originally "Dog House" and then more significantly "Abiogenesis". FidoNet, AltNet, SaudiNet. GKCSA president when we fought SWB on the tariff charges, blah blah blah.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by myselff77

Cool. I’ll say yes. What year was that? Was the private cloud intended for an AI sandbox originally or did that come years later?

2005. Yes, they had code written( by the smartest people I've ever met). you ever met someone and immediately knew this was one smart mother fooker? That was these guys, Complete nerds.

they wanted to try it out but didn't have rights to the forest which I did so I was drafted and borrowed me from Homeland Security. No Ai. no coding just build a sandbox. Routine stuff. What they were doing in the sandbox wasn't routine but I was clueless about that part.

[Mosbonian]

One of the things I do not miss being retired....the inane processes set up by your friendly neighborhood "Talent Acquisition " Team....the people who avoid at all costs having to interact with real people.

[DaFace]

Having just gone through a job search, I can definitely attest that AI has made things a bit of a mess. HR departments made applicants' lives miserable by moving to applicant tracking systems and some version of keyword/AI ranking over the past 5-10 years. That was a pain, but now applicants have their own AI help in ChatGPT in the like, making it relatively easy to tailor your resume to a job application, so now all of those ATS's are ranking tons of people highly who might not actually be all that qualified - they're just good at gaming the system.

I managed to find a job through a combination of that and actually reaching out to the hiring manager to introduce myself. I think all sides are starting to lose faith that the current system is functioning efficiently.

[Spott]

Originally Posted by Mosbonian

One of the things I do not miss being retired....the inane processes set up by your friendly neighborhood "Talent Acquisition " Team....the people who avoid at all costs having to interact with real people.

Michael was right to hate Toby. HR is the absolute armpit of society. The only time they will do actual work is if it means getting out of more work.

[KCUnited]

The "models" on Instagram are looking a little more perfectly enhanced

Gary and Wyatt from Weird Science were onto something

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Having just gone through a job search, I can definitely attest that AI has made things a bit of a mess. HR departments made applicants' lives miserable by moving to applicant tracking systems and some version of keyword/AI ranking over the past 5-10 years. That was a pain, but now applicants have their own AI help in ChatGPT in the like, making it relatively easy to tailor your resume to a job application, so now all of those ATS's are ranking tons of people highly who might not actually be all that qualified - they're just good at gaming the system.

I managed to find a job through a combination of that and actually reaching out to the hiring manager to introduce myself. I think all sides are starting to lose faith that the current system is functioning efficiently.

Unless something goes horribly awry, I completed my 3rd successful job interview in 30 years yesterday. I'm comfortably retired and applying for jobs far below positions I've held previously, and the process is ridiculous. And then you walk in to almost any retail space and it's filled with WTF employees.

I really don't understand how we got here.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Having just gone through a job search, I can definitely attest that AI has made things a bit of a mess. HR departments made applicants' lives miserable by moving to applicant tracking systems and some version of keyword/AI ranking over the past 5-10 years. That was a pain, but now applicants have their own AI help in ChatGPT in the like, making it relatively easy to tailor your resume to a job application, so now all of those ATS's are ranking tons of people highly who might not actually be all that qualified - they're just good at gaming the system.

I managed to find a job through a combination of that and actually reaching out to the hiring manager to introduce myself. I think all sides are starting to lose faith that the current system is functioning efficiently.

So am I understanding it properly that you plug into chat GPT Make me a resume for this job description?

And then the hiring managers are using an AI tool to select resumes based off this job description?

So any applicant NOT using AI is certainly not to get selected?

And it's been my (albeit limited) experience that job descriptions rarely represent the actual job.

That does seem to be a Pioli-esque tirefire.

[Mosbonian]

Originally Posted by Bob Dole

Unless something goes horribly awry, I completed my 3rd successful job interview in 30 years yesterday. I'm comfortably retired and applying for jobs far below positions I've held previously, and the process is ridiculous. And then you walk in to almost any retail space and it's filled with WTF employees.

I really don't understand how we got here.

This will probably get me labeled as an angry old Boomer, but here goes.

The whole desire to de-humanize the interview process began some time ago, when HR(Talent Acquisition in some companies) decided it wanted to streamline the actually job they are paid to do, interview possible candidates for any open position. The genius that said "let's make a program that uses keywords" to filter thru potential applicants instead of taking the time to actually read the resume and see the true qualifications, that is the guy I want to choke.

Now, I get in this day and age companies get tons of resumes for job openings and the thought of having to sift thru all of them is mind boggling. But narrowing the key words to specific items really does de-humanize the person and doesn't take into consideration other skills that may match the qualifications.

I said this in another thread.....having lost out on good potential candidates (it's too long of another story to put in this long rant) I started making the HR team send me in one batch, the list of the possible candidates they chose to forward to me for further consideration.....and in another batch, send me those who they rejected on the first pass.

Funny thing....most of the candidates that I ended up hiring came from the second batch. And all of them actually turned out to be damn good associates.

Rant over...

[notorious]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Having just gone through a job search, I can definitely attest that AI has made things a bit of a mess. HR departments made applicants' lives miserable by moving to applicant tracking systems and some version of keyword/AI ranking over the past 5-10 years. That was a pain, but now applicants have their own AI help in ChatGPT in the like, making it relatively easy to tailor your resume to a job application, so now all of those ATS's are ranking tons of people highly who might not actually be all that qualified - they're just good at gaming the system.

I managed to find a job through a combination of that and actually reaching out to the hiring manager to introduce myself. I think all sides are starting to lose faith that the current system is functioning efficiently.

Originally Posted by Buehler445

So am I understanding it properly that you plug into chat GPT Make me a resume for this job description?

And then the hiring managers are using an AI tool to select resumes based off this job description?

So any applicant NOT using AI is certainly not to get selected?

And it's been my (albeit limited) experience that job descriptions rarely represent the actual job.

That does seem to be a Pioli-esque tirefire.

Big opportunity for well-ran companies that put out the effort and do the leg work to get good applicants that will eventually be employees.

Lazy companies lean on AI for applicants, and they will pay the price.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

So am I understanding it properly that you plug into chat GPT Make me a resume for this job description?

And then the hiring managers are using an AI tool to select resumes based off this job description?

So any applicant NOT using AI is certainly not to get selected?

And it's been my (albeit limited) experience that job descriptions rarely represent the actual job.

That does seem to be a Pioli-esque tirefire.

That's over-simplified, but you've got the gist. Keyword stuffing has been a recommended approach for a while now, but it was always time-consuming for an individual to do.

I wouldn't say you could just tell ChatGPT to generate a resume for a job from scratch, but my approach was to feed it a job description, then feed it my resume, then ask it what keywords were missing. I could ask it to suggest words I could change to improve my match rate and things like that. I didn't ever take its suggestions directly, but I used it extensively to help me know what kinds of tweaks I could make, then made the ones I thought fit my style.

However, I was going for the low(ish) volume, high probability approach. For someone in a field like software engineering where people are applying to hundreds of jobs, I have no doubts that some people literally feed it a job description, feed it a rough resume, and ask it to spit out something that will score well in the ATS.