At last month’s NASCIO Midyear conference, we talked with Washington CIO Bill Kehoe on the impact of artificial intelligence on the hiring process at Washington Technology Solutions. Not only is the agency receiving more applications for open positions, they’re having to adapt how they screen applicants to ensure they actually have the knowledge and skills required for the job. Interview questions should be more “scenario based,” Kehoe said, noting that having prospective candidates give a presentation in person can be a better way to evaluate their skills than virtual-only processes.
Video transcript:
I think what we're seeing is that we're getting a lot of really well-written cover letters and resumes. And sometimes they're not complete. You can tell that they're being developed by AI. So we have to be a little more diligent in our screening because everything is so well-written and all the resumes just look spot on. I don't know that that's a problem, it's just changed the way we look at how we're screening candidates. And we're much more into personal interaction to the point of let's maybe have some more in-person interviews when we get down to selecting the candidates so that we can really make sure that the candidate has the knowledge, has the skills, and isn't using AI to answer interview questions for instance, right? I also think we need to be really diligent in the questions that we ask. So I like more scenario-based questions that are more difficult to turn to ChatGPT in an interview, as an example, to answer. They're really based on scenarios in your past and that you have to recall. And also, you know, sample coming in and doing a presentation, right? In person. Putting a presentation together and delivering that in an interview. So I think we'll see more of that. And so the screening is a little more difficult. We're getting a lot more candidates. But I think we're making some good adjustments to make sure we still get the best candidate.
