What is the biggest challenge in using AI in recruitment?

HR professionals in Singapore have ranked budget constraints as the biggest challenge for AI implementation in recruitment, according to a new survey from Hays.

Budget constraints were cited as a challenge by 35% of HR professionals, as well as 24% of non-HR professionals surveyed.

Ensuring fairness and mitigating bias in AI algorithms, as well as the technology's integration with existing HR systems and processes are ranked as the second-biggest challenges (31%) for HR professionals, according to the report.

Other challenges cited include data privacy and security concerns (30%), as well as IT implementation issues (28%).

Tom Osborne, Managing Director of Hays Southeast Asia, said leaders need to "understand and tackle" the issues identified by HR and non-HR professionals.

"HR professionals will additionally require budgetary support to cater for hands-on training with AI recruitment tools and AI solutions with more human-like interactions or strategic human elements to ensure all stakeholders are comfortable to utilise AI in the recruitment process," he said in a statement.

AI adoption in recruitment

The findings come as employers across Singapore remain cautious in adopting AI in recruitment, with 45.3% of the respondents admitting that they have no plans to use such tools in the coming year.

However, 2.7% of the respondents said they are "extensively" relying on AI in recruitment, while 8.3% are moderately using it specific stages.

Usage of AI among the respondents has mostly been a "mix of automation and optimisation of various tasks," according to Hays.

Around a third of the respondents said they use AI tools for resume screening and shortlisting (37%), as well as for candidate assessment and ranking (33%).