Why Students Must Learn to 'Market' Their Skills for AI-Based Recruitment

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quietly become the first gatekeeper in the hiring process for many companies in India.

- SARBOJIT MALLICK

Artificial Intelligence [AI] has quietly become the first gatekeeper in the hiring process for many companies in India. What began as an experiment to reduce recruiter workload has turned into a standard filter, taking care of tasks such as parsing resumes, ranking candidates, and in some cases, even predicting cultural fit. However, as more organisations rely on AI to identify the "right" people, it is worth asking whether this technology is equipped to recognise the kind of unconventional, emerging tech talent that Indian educational and vocational institutions are producing today.

In many cases, it is not.

And that gap between potential and opportunity is something businesses cannot afford to overlook.

THE MACHINE LEARNS FROM THE PAST

An AI hiring system does not evaluate candidates in a vacuum. It learns from the data it has been fed, such as old resumes, hiring patterns, job descriptions, and records of how previous employees performed. The trouble is that previous data often reflects outdated ideas about what makes a good hire, and may even be biased.

In India, this historical data often reflects old hiring biases: a heavy tilt towards elite institutes, a preference for conventional career paths, and an over-reliance on formal degrees. As a result, the algorithm may reject the blockchain developer from Coimbatore who taught herself Solidity on YouTube, or the AI engineer from Guwahati whose only formal credential is an online certificate but whose GitHub profile shows real expertise.

The machine is not deliberately excluding them.