Almost two-thirds of employers use AI to reject candidates before human review, study finds

Almost two-thirds (65%) of US employers using artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment said the technology automatically rejects candidates before they are reviewed by a person, according to research from MyPerfectResume.

The survey of 1,000 US employers involved in hiring and workforce decisions found that 26% said AI rejected between 1% and 25% of applicants, while 25% put the proportion at between 26% and 50%.

A further 11% said between 51% and 75% of applicants were rejected automatically, while 5% said AI did not reject any candidates before human review.

However, 47% of employers said AI had filtered out candidates they would otherwise have progressed, raising questions around the accuracy of automated recruitment decisions.

AI is also increasingly being used beyond recruitment, with 52% of employers using the technology to support workforce planning decisions, including restructuring and assessing role redundancies.

A further 28% were considering doing so.

Confidence in its fairness was mixed, with 51% of employers saying they were confident AI was being used fairly in layoffs, compared with 23% who expressed doubts. The remaining 26% did not use AI in layoff decisions.

The research also found that 51% of employers used AI to identify candidates considered “risky”, including those with career gaps or histories of frequently changing jobs, with another 12% considering doing so.