Netherlands it’s raining and I’m waiting
for my interview at a consumer goods
company
it’s my seventh round interview and I am
nervous because this is a job this is my
first job and I really want it so when
if he pH or calls me to tell me that I’m
having a conversation with a
psychologist she comforts me by saying
it’s just gonna be a conversation to get
to know you and no you don’t need to
prepare anything so I take a couple of
deep breaths and with wet hair I enter
the room the psychologist is already
waiting for me he doesn’t smile tells me
to sit down and hands me a piece of
paper this is a case study about a
marmalade factory in Poland tell me in
15 minutes
feel my heart beating and my hands start
sweating I just finished a Master degree
in a Dutch Hospital on children with a
genetical disease PNL P and L was that
some kind of new medicine I had never
done any volume or price analysis let
alone been involved in sales strategies
I look at the psychologist does he see
that I’m struggling after 15 minutes
when I start explaining my solutions to
the best of my ability his attitude
doesn’t change at that moment my mind
goes crazy I already see myself stuck at
my parents place well all my friends
make fabulous careers so when I tell him
this when I tell him that I feel that
I’m totally in the wrong there
action he for the first time looks at me
wait a smile yes you are commercially as
green as grass and this is not gonna
work for us
goodbye back on the street I can’t help
but cry I feel like a complete loser was
this worth years of education did I feel
that I got a good chance to prove my
motivation and learning capabilities
would I ever find a job again I’m
obviously here today and I survived but
that experience 15 years ago completely
changed my view on human decision-making
I was confronted with human bias I had
seen a career that I felt so passionate
about seen stolen for me and to be
completely Frank and open I had been
biased to I thought this was a great
opportunity and a great company but what
had I actually known about the people
behind that nice brand name not that
much now let’s do a little experiment
here in the audience
you’re obviously seated next to nice
people have a good look around you and
pinpoint the person next to you who you
think will be working in banking finance
accountancy don’t be shy so why do you
think that she’s in accounting is it
well that’s very human isn’t it but can
be flaw too now if you dare raise your
hand for those of you that are actually
working in finance oh that’s a pretty
different result isn’t it what if I
given this presentation today with pink
hair would you’ve observed me
differently probably yes this is how
human bias happens it’s very human but
it’s wrong and it’s a problem a big
problem boov you in the audience are
currently looking for a job or
interested in a career switch raise your
hands well I was talking to a friend
last week who was an executive in the
food industry Rina he said I want to
change industry I want to do something
new I’m sure that my skill sets can be
valuable somewhere else but then he
angrily continued the headhunters are
only offering me jobs in food it seems
that I can’t get that sticker of my
forehead and I could feel his
frustration because every day were being
judged you’re being judged often on
merits that are far stretch from reality
every day young people are screened out
for jobs because they don’t have that
exact University on their resume or that
exact major all for reasons far worse
than these in society we often talk
about diversity and the importance of it
but in our daily lives we take shortcuts
and decision making especially in HR but
let’s step into the shoes of the hiring
manager for a moment what tools thus he
or she actually have to find the right
candidate how does she know who to look
for in the first place
well the uncomfortable truth is that we
don’t exactly know or as a partner from
a leading strategy firm put it we put
all these resources in the recruitment
process we do CV screening case studies
face to face interviews assessment
centers we invite a great group of
diverse leaders just to believe that
can take out this little bit of human
bias in the process but the reality is
we still sometimes hire the wrong people
now what does this exactly mean for us
data talks 40% of the companies that are
leading their industry today will go
extinct in the next 15 years let that
sink in for a moment so 40% of the
companies leaving their industry today
will go extinct in the next 15 years and
the most important reason for that human
bias is the biggest impediment for
growth another fact point we know that
in the United States four percent of the
jobs goes unfilled because of a skills
mismatch now if we take that number and
we applied it globally that means that
200 million jobs go unfilled every year
or to visualize for you that means two
and a half times the population of
Germany so ladies and gentlemen it is
time it is time for us to look for new
ways to identify the right candidate for
the right job it is time for us to get
rid of human bias and it is time for us
to embrace robots to help us make better
decisions for ourselves for companies
and for society and today I will tell
you how but let me first explain to you
what artificial intelligence or robots
actually are artificial intelligence
it’s like a computer brain and like a
human brain it can read listen interpret
data to come to conclusions the
difference between a computer brain and
the human brain is that the computer
brain can process data in orders of
magnitude larger than a human brain
possibly again much more data much
faster
without getting tired or being biased
from our research we see that language
the way we speak has a very high
correlation with what we do our
behaviors the beauty of language is that
it’s subconsciously produced in our
brains so it can be seen as a unique
fingerprint of who we are
imagine the iceberg we can see the 10%
above the water but that what is behind
under the water we don’t know how big or
beautiful that particular piece is now
that is exactly what artificial
intelligence can do it can reveal the
90% under the water that we can’t
possibly see by looking at someone or
listening to someone front running
companies in China today are applying
this technology to analyze people’s
language and predict who fits their
company or job best at a cosmetics
company here in China recruiters were
working through tonight to screen
thousands of resume for a handful of
positions we feel that we’re missing out
on great people their recruitment
director said we look for a university
ranking their major whether they did an
internship with our competitors it’s all
we have until we meet them and we can’t
possibly meet them all it’s all they had
until they started to apply artificial
intelligence to identify the right hire
and when they embrace artificial
intelligence this is how they did it
they replaced a CV screening process and
telephone interviews with a digital
interview a robot to select and screen
candidates
I hear you thinking a robot a machine
selecting candidates yes
and we’re not talking 2050 here this
already happened two years ago the
company interviewed tens of thousands of
candidates through their mobile phone
asking them questions that they would
normally ask in a face-to-face interview
what makes you a great leader how do you
get people to work together what is your
motivation to come and work for us and
the beauty of it was that all these
candidates could share our own
experience in the answers and ideas in
their own unique language and wording
now the algorithms would take in these
answers and compare them to everything
that they’ve read and learned over time
as a benchmark you have to imagine this
great leaders talk differently they’re
not so great leaders engineers use
different language than commercial
people do the computer is able to
identify our expressions in the words
related to those two are likely
behaviors and personality traits it
takes us humans a lifetime to do this
and then still our judgment is depending
on how we feel whether we are tired had
a fight with our husbands that morning
or our having our periods I have not yet
seen a computer having those issues
so I hear you’re thinking and was it
better did it lead to more diverse
hiring where these people more motivated
one-third of the candidates selected by
the Machine came from different
backgrounds than in previous years these
candidates would have been screened out
by a human selection process following
these candidates throughout the first
year of their employment hiring managers
indicated that they performed better
than average fewer candidates left their
job which was seen as an indicator for
motivation
now what about time you remember me
being in my seventh round interview this
time the computers instantly ranked
candidates which gave HR any opportunity
to if faster feedback to the candidate
and save time in the process ladies and
gentlemen exciting times are ahead of us
let me paint the picture of the future
for you job seekers this is coming your
way imagine after a hard day of work one
of them many you take subway line 10
back home and while cruising through the
city your HR bot starts talking to you
how was your day and while you chat
along to board us what do you what are
you excited about what kind of job would
you actually like and based on your
answers your facial expressions
your tone of voice the HR boat starts
working and when you arrive back home
and you put the key in your apartment or
your mobile phone has already received
three job offers perfectly matching your
skills and motivation by bad job welcome
future HR and hiring managers this is
coming your way
imagine your talent bond creates
blueprints of successful behaviors in
your organization analyzing your
employees
language on a daily basis it will
perfectly indicate who will be great
leaders great salespeople who will be
compliant or more of a risk taker and
every day the algorithms will screen
thousands of potential candidates
identifying who might be a great fit to
your company artificial intelligence
will help us to only spend time on the
right candidates robots are coming and I
believe they’re not scary or impersonal
but exactly the opposite artificial
intelligence will help us to reveal
meaningful things about ourselves and
others artificial intelligence will help
us to make better decisions based on
information we do not have today now
critics will say you know robots are not
ready they will say the technology is
early stage but let me remind you that
the methods we use today are far from
perfect we have an opportunity to
prepare for a better world we are at a
crossroad you are at a crossroad and we
have an important decision to make do we
stick to our old habits then we stick to
old methods with the same bad results or
do we go for change for innovation for
more fairness if you say yes we need you
to be bold we need you to step out of
your comfort zone and we need you to
experiment but the upward will be huge I
am sure that when our kids with all
their different talents enter the job
markets that they will be looked upon
without any sort of bias that it doesn’t
matter anymore what family we were born
in or what education we finalized like
it did for me 15 years ago but at
artificial intelligence will help us to
find our better parts that artificial
intelligence
will lead to more equality at last thank
you [Applause]