Is AI Coming For Your Job?

Hilke Schellmann explains how AI is being used in the job market and the best ways to get ahead of the algorithm.

The promise and the peril of AI in the workplace seem to be all anyone can talk about these days. Is it ok to use AI in the workplace? Should I use AI tools to update my resume? Where’s the line? And even more alarming — will AI take my job?  

According to Fortune 500 Human Resource Officers, the answer to that last question is yes, AI could be coming for your job. Gallup found that seventy-two percent of Fortune 500 leaders foresee AI replacing jobs in their organization in the next three years. 

SUBSCRIBE: New episode drops every Wednesday! Subscribe to HerMoney on Apple Podcasts so you never miss the latest 🙂

And it’s no surprise that women’s jobs are predicted to be more affected than men’s. A recent report from McKinsey found that women are one and half times more likely than men to need to find new jobs by 2030 due to impacts from AI. That’s because industries most affected by AI will be food services, customer service, sales, and office support, and women are overrepresented in these sectors. Women also make up the majority of lower-paid jobs, which are the ones that AI will be replacing. So how do we get ahead of this? 

Hilke Schellmann, author of The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now has some ideas. 

MAKE YOUR RESUME MACHINE READABLE

First, she says to make sure your resume is machine-readable. “We used to say stand out, make your resume two columns, and make it really beautiful. A machine cannot read that. And in fact, it might misread it,” Schellmann says. “Your machine-readable resume has to be short and crisp, use very declarative sentences, use quantitative information, and list all of your skills.” 

Schellmann recommends putting your resume through Jobscan, a tool that helps optimize your resume for ATS or “applicant tracking system.” She says these tools will help decipher what kind of overlap your resume has with the job you’re applying for, and that you should be aiming for a 60 to 80 percent overlap. 

However, ”if you have 100 percent overlap some machines will reject you because they think you’ve copied the job description,” Schellmann warns.

PREPARE FOR A ONE-WAY INTERVIEW

Schellmann also points out that many companies are now doing one-way interviews for the first round of the interview process where you’ll get pre-recorded questions, and then record yourself responding to them. 

Schellmann spoke to one company, HireVue that works with businesses to conduct about 100,000 of these video interviews every day and she says the best thing to do is “think through the story you want to tell as a response to these questions because the worst thing you can do is give a short answer.” 

“Folks who give shorter answers are really problematic for the algorithm to understand and to infer if they’re going to be successful or not,” Schellmann says. “So it’s helpful to give examples and not be too short.”

She also points out that these programs use facial expression analysis, so even though you’re not talking to a human on the other side it’s best to “sound upbeat, positive, and interesting,” similar to how you’d want to sound in a face to face interview with a hiring manager.  

WILL AI TAKE MY JOB?

So will AI take your job? Schellmann says not to panic just yet. 

While some jobs are going to become obsolete (as they always have with the advent of new technology) it’s more important to be aware of how you can use AI to be more productive in the job you do have. 

Schellmann says that “some people will be replaced by other employees who know how to use AI to be more efficient. Dabbling with these AI tools and trying to use them to understand how they could be helpful in your work (or in the work of your company) is important.”

For those who are worried about the advent of AI, Schellmann believes that AI is a “transformative technology” and when used in the right way it can be incredibly helpful for those looking to find a new job or level up in their current position. 

MORE ON HERMONEY:

Join the HerMoney community! For the latest episode drops and financial news-you-can-use, subscribe to our newsletter at Hermoney.com/subscribe!