Artificial Intelligence is being used as a support tool by various technology and IT companies when it comes to recruitment, but decisions remain human led.
MaltaCEOs.mt contacted various businesses in the field to better understand the kind of impact Artificial Intelligence has had on recruitment practices in this field.
A number of companies highlighted the support function AI plays, while some highlighted concerns they have over candidates using AI in their applications.
Karen Satariano Banavage, Internal Talent Acquisition Executive at Cleverbit Software (a software company), explained that AI has become a valuable tool in supporting the company’s recruitment process, saying it uses AI to assist with administrative and preparatory tasks, such as drafting job descriptions and reviewing CVs to identify areas that may require clarification during interviews.
She stressed however, that AI is there to support their recruiters, not replace them, and that the company views AI as an enabler rather than a decision-maker.
“It does not decide who progresses through our recruitment process or who gets hired. Those decisions are based on human judgement, meaningful conversations, technical assessments and collaboration between our recruitment and technical teams.”
Looking ahead, she believes we’ll likely see AI taking on more of the repetitive, administrative work, such as sourcing candidates, matching skills to job requirements, scheduling interviews and summarising information. “This will allow recruiters to focus more on building relationships, understanding candidates' motivations and providing a better overall recruitment experience. At the same time, I don't believe AI will replace human judgement.”
Karl Demicoli, Chief HR Officer at BMIT (a company that provides hybrid IT, cybersecurity and managed solutions), said that his company uses AI more as a tool to help people work more efficiently rather than to make decisions. “Recruitment and people decisions remain made by people, with AI helping to save time and support the process.”
Some other companies in the IT and tech field indicated that AI has altered the kind of skills they look for in prospective candidates.
AI skills
Matthew Sammut, Co-Founder of 9H Digital, a tech and creative company that delivers full-service end-to-end business solutions, for instance said that while AI hasn’t driven it to hire fewer people, it has completely changed what the company looks for when it hires. It now assesses AI fluency as a baseline competency.
“A candidate who doesn't have a working relationship with AI tools is, frankly, at a disadvantage regardless of their role,” he said. On the operational side, he said, AI has compressed the time it takes junior team members to reach productive output. “That changes the calculus around hiring — we're less dependent on hiring someone with five years of experience when a sharp, AI-literate candidate with two can close that gap quickly.”
As for how 9H predicts AI will impact recruitment decisions and personnel in the future, he said that on one end, many execution-layer roles such as basic content production and first-line support will shrink or transform significantly. On the other end, he believes demand will rise sharply for people “who can own outcomes”, mentioning architects, strategists, client-facing leads, people who can frame problems well and direct AI toward solving them, as examples.
He also believes that recruitment itself will change. “AI will handle more of the screening and matching, which paradoxically means the human judgement calls — culture fit, leadership potential, adaptability — become more important, not less, because those are the things AI can't reliably assess.”
Two other companies that wished to remain anonymous also highlighted the importance of AI skills. One said that AI literacy is one of the top things it looks for in all positions, and another said that while AI has not fundamentally changed its hiring strategy, it has changed the profiles it looks for. “We now place greater emphasis on candidates who can work effectively with AI tools, think critically, solve complex problems, and validate AI-generated outputs rather than simply carrying out repetitive technical tasks,” one of them said.
Issues with AI use in job applications
Meanwhile, some companies have also highlighted the issues they are facing because of AI being used by prospective candidates, underlining that this works against the applicants.
AIRO Software Ltd (a software consultancy firm), which said it does not use AI tools directly to screen candidates, assess applications, or make recruitment and personnel decisions, was one such company. “Unfortunately we have seen a large number of candidates submitting CVs written by AI, interviews where the candidate is using AI to answer and tests being completely done with AI. From our end, these result in automatic rejection.”
It said it does use AI in its wider business operations, and that the main impact so far has been to improve productivity and help its team work more efficiently.
The company expects AI to become increasingly useful in supporting recruitment activities, particularly in areas such as organising applications, identifying relevant skills, preparing interview questions, and reducing administrative work. “However, we believe recruitment decisions should continue to involve meaningful human oversight.” It, too, believes AI literacy is will become an increasingly valuable skill.
Marc Chase, Co-Founder of MeetBee (a company which provides managed services to webinar production tasks), also spoke about the issue. He said that AI has made it easier than ever for prospective employees to customise their CVs for each and every job they are applying for.
“This requires companies like us to use extra scrutiny with every application received. Applicants can easily seem perfect for the job, so we need to check whether they used similar wording in their CV to match what we do as a company. If we identify data scraping from our website or LinkedIn profiles, it immediately raises a red flag and that candidate could be excluded from being interviewed. We want to identify candidates who accurately represent their job history and experience.”
Mr Chase said that AI has provided the opportunity for candidates to streamline the recruitment application process and apply for more positions than ever before. This creates a challenge for small and medium sized businesses looking for the right candidate to have to go through a much larger number of applications, he said.
An article providing insight from companies about the impact AI has had on jobs in the field can be read on WhosWho.mt
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