Why This Savvy Tech CEO Is Betting Against AI to Pick Top Talent — And What It Means for Your Hiring Strategy

An estimated 99% of Fortune 500 companies use automation in some part of their hiring process. Now, a CEO is challenging using AI to review resumes, arguing that the practice could cause companies to miss out on exceptional candidates.

Matt Calkins, CEO of enterprise software company Appian, refuses to use AI to screen resumes, according to a Tuesday report from Business Insider. He said that AI can’t fairly judge applicants.

“We were supposed to be better than that,” Calkins told BI during a recent press dinner. “We were supposed to spot the magic in people when we read their resumes, and it didn’t take AI to screen for, I don’t know, did you do well in school or something?”

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Calkins warns that relying on AI for resume reviews, while “modern,” could result in overlooking unique individuals.

“We’re trying to hire at a very elite level, and I think if we use AI, we’re going to start checkboxing,” Calkins said at the dinner.

Companies like Google and Salesforce use AI at various points in the hiring process. Google told BI earlier this year that although humans still review every application it receives, the company uses AI to suggest the right open roles for candidates based on their skills and experience. Meanwhile, Salesforce told BI that it uses AI-powered tools to scan candidate resumes for valued skills, like AI literacy.

Calkins says that most companies aren’t using AI properly, citing an MIT study released in July that showed that 95% of companies have yet to see returns from generative AI investments. The study, which included interviews with 150 executives and a survey of 350 employees, found that the overwhelming majority of AI pilots don’t result in financial savings or increased profits.

Related: 37% of Employers Would Rather Hire a Robot or AI Than a Recent Grad: ‘Theory Alone Is No Longer Enough’

Calkins says that AI’s lack of measurable results is due to “ignorance” about how to put the technology to work. He advocates connecting AI with real, high-impact business challenges rather than applications like resume screening.

Calkins mentioned a potential use case — corporate communication — noting that most companies get millions of pieces of incoming information per day. They can use AI to manage it all more efficiently.

Appian’s own internal AI system can understand a wide variety of inputs, including emails, handwritten notes, faxes and calls, and upload documents to the right database with 99% accuracy. Calkins calls this an “amazing” but also “boring” use case of the technology.

“It’s back office,” he said at the press dinner. “Nobody will understand it if you do a Super Bowl ad about it.”

Related: An AI Company With a Popular Writing Tool Tells Candidates They Can’t Use It on the Job Application

An estimated 99% of Fortune 500 companies use automation in some part of their hiring process. Now, a CEO is challenging using AI to review resumes, arguing that the practice could cause companies to miss out on exceptional candidates.

Matt Calkins, CEO of enterprise software company Appian, refuses to use AI to screen resumes, according to a Tuesday report from Business Insider. He said that AI can’t fairly judge applicants.