Video application: Candidates with a bookshelf in the background do better

In the future, the selection of applicants could be outsourced to systems with artificial intelligence.

These should make decisions completely neutral.

Is that possible?

Regardless of whether it is a job interview * or an application video, the first impression should be convincing.

The Anti-Discrimination Act counteracts a decision based on prejudice.

In the meantime, a number of start-ups have formed that are supposed to make it easier for companies to make an initial selection of applicants using artificial intelligence.

To find out how fair these systems are, the

Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation

carried out a research project in cooperation with the Munich start-up Reterio.

The young company has developed software that analyzes application videos and creates a behavior-based personality profile.

Like the start-up opposite the

Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation

said, the application process will be “not only faster, but also more objective and fair”.

You can read here whether the software, which language, gestures and facial expressions should classify without prejudice, actually cannot be influenced.

Video application: software analyzes according to personality model

The software program classifies the applicant based on a personality model.

In it are

openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism

assessed.

The research should reveal to what extent the values ​​change when a person is analyzed with the same text and pitch, but different looks and backgrounds.

In the experiment, the actors can achieve values ​​between 0 and 100 in the five personality dimensions.

In a first attempt it turned out that the applicant without glasses was classified as particularly conscientious.

That changed once she went through the same process with glasses.

In fact, she lost ten points on the conscientiousness scale.

Other

outfit changes also show clear differences to the values ​​from the original video

.

When

asked by the

Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation

how this influence is to be justified, the software developer replies: “As in a normal job interview, such factors are also included in the evaluation.

All of this takes place without asking, without any pressure, such as can arise in a conversation. ”The Retorio algorithm also relies on evaluating both the effect and the impression that a person leaves behind.

Also read:

Emotional intelligence: These five signs indicate a high EQ - do you recognize yourself?

Does the background in the applicant video influence the assessment?

As the investigations showed, the background is also decisive for the software selection process.

In a further video attempt, a white background was added to a picture frame in the comparison video.

The comparison shows that with a picture in the background, the applicant appears more open and conscientious than without.

A

massive difference can be seen when a bookshelf was chosen as the background

.

In fact, the applicant looks even more conscientious in this case than in comparison with the picture frame in the background.

But how can that be?

The computer science professor Katharina Zweig, who heads the Algorithm Accountability Lab at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, points out the

following

to the

Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation

: “The fundamental problem with face recognition, through machine learning, is that we are never quite precise know which pattern in an image these machines react to. "

Also read:

“Which animal would you like to be?” This is how you answer bizarre questions in the interview

.

In further tests it was found that changes in the video brightness also influence the result.

According to the start-up, it is up to the applicant to get the best out of the video: “However, it is completely up to the applicant how often he / she records his / her video, rechecks it, reruns it and which version he / she uses is then satisfied, is sent.

All of this takes place without the pressure that can arise in conversational situations. ”What is needed now are uniform rules for dealing with artificial intelligence and using it in the application process.

(swa) * Merkur.de is an offer from

IPPEN.MEDIA.

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