Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment : Opportunities and Challenges of Implementing Artificial Intelligence in today’s Recruitment Processes

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most spoken-of technologies of today. The future of AI, how it will affect every aspect of our lives, and its potential associated to various sectors are intensively debated. The technology has in recent years started to emerge in the recruitment field, leading to an intensified discussion of its advantages and disadvantages in this context. This master thesis aims to examine and analyze where in recruitment processes it is favorable for organizations to use artificial intelligence, why that might be the case, and how it can be done. To answer the research objective, this thesis contains a literature review focusing on the recruitment process, AI in general, and AI in recruitment, as well as an interview study with key people in different job positions connected to recruitment. Following the results of this study, the main challenges in recruitment today, how AI can help overcome these challenges, and potential barriers preventing AI from doing so, are identified. The main challenges are identified as candidate shortage, distribution of resources, limitations in organizations’ ways of working, and keeping recruitments objective. AI has the potential of helping organizations with all of these challenges, mainly due to its superiority over humans regarding the processing of large volumes of information. The potential barriers identified are mainly connected to recruiters' technological knowledge, their trust in AI, and their view of AI as a threat towards their profession. The thesis concludes that the candidate shortage limiting the labor market today is driving the development of a more efficient and secure recruitment process where AI plays an increasingly important role. To enable the implementation of AI, organizations need to actively encourage the acquisition of knowledge about the technology among their HRM professionals, because, without their understanding of the technology and how it benefits them, its prominent advantages can not be achieved by the organization.