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Fairness, transparency and human oversight guide how Employment Hero builds AI. This article answers common questions about how the Recruitment Agent supports fair hiring, what it does and doesn't do, and who remains responsible for hiring decisions. To learn more about our overall approach, visit our Responsible AI page.
Questions
- How does the Recruitment Agent support fair and inclusive hiring?
- What information does the Recruitment Agent use to assess candidates?
- Does the Recruitment Agent make hiring decisions?
- Can I see how candidates were scored?
- Can an employer use the Recruitment Agent to screen candidates by age or other protected attributes?
- Can I review and edit the interview questions and criteria?
- What happens if a candidate's CV is missing key information?
- How does Employment Hero monitor the Recruitment Agent for bias?
- Who is responsible if a candidate believes they were treated unfairly?
- How is candidate data protected when AI is used?
Answers
How does the Recruitment Agent support fair and inclusive hiring?
Fairness and inclusivity are core principles in how we build our products. Reducing bias and discrimination is something we actively build for, and we review and monitor our AI systems on an ongoing basis. The Recruitment Agent supports fair hiring in several ways:
- It assesses candidates on the skills, experience and qualifications relevant to the role.
- It deliberately excludes protected attributes such as name, age and gender, as well as other non-job-related attributes.
- Every candidate is asked the same questions, which can help reduce the subconscious bias that can occur in traditional screening.
- It uses structured evaluation criteria, so responses are assessed against a consistent framework.
- Hiring teams receive a scorecard with the reasoning behind it, and people, not AI, make the final hiring decision.
Any hiring tool can carry bias if it isn't designed, tested and overseen properly. That's why the Recruitment Agent is built to help reduce bias, and why human oversight remains central.
What information does the Recruitment Agent use to assess candidates?
The Recruitment Agent assesses candidates against criteria built from the job description, using role-relevant evidence such as skills, responsibilities, experience and qualifications. It conducts structured interviews with role-specific core questions and asks follow-up questions if a candidate's answer is brief, so it can explore specific examples and outcomes.
Does the Recruitment Agent make hiring decisions?
No. The Recruitment Agent provides recommendations, not determinations. It gives your hiring team a scorecard and the reasoning behind it so a person can decide based on clear evidence. Because candidates' recorded video responses are available, your team can review and override evaluations. Final hiring decisions are always made by people.
Can I see how candidates were scored?
Yes. The scoring criteria are visible to you upfront, and each candidate's scorecard includes an explanation of how they performed against the interview questions. Changes to criteria weighting are logged, so there is an audit trail.
Can an employer use the Recruitment Agent to screen candidates by age or other protected attributes?
No. The Recruitment Agent is designed to assess candidates on skills, experience and qualifications for the role, not on age or other protected attributes. We have safeguards that prevent employers from asking explicit questions about certain protected attributes, including age.
Employers remain responsible for the hiring decisions they make. Age discrimination in hiring is unlawful in Australia and New Zealand, whatever tool is used, and Employment Hero complies with the laws in the markets we operate in.
Can I review and edit the interview questions and criteria?
Yes. Admins and users with custom permissions for Recruitment can review and edit the questions and criteria before launching the agent. Hiring managers and collaborators can view which candidates received the interview and their completed video answers. For setup steps, see Set up and manage the AI-powered Recruitment Agent.
What happens if a candidate's CV is missing key information?
Rather than automatically rejecting a candidate against a job description, the platform can reach out to the candidate to clarify their background.
How does Employment Hero monitor the Recruitment Agent for bias?
We continuously monitor the performance of our AI models and periodically audit prioritised systems for fairness and bias. We undertake documented bias and disparate impact testing, and documented reviews and audits of agent performance, to help monitor for potential biased outcomes, red flags or unexpected patterns. If issues are found, we remediate and re-test. The platform also includes blind hiring, which anonymises candidate details (such as name, photo, social profiles, address, email and phone number) in the early stages of recruitment, and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) reporting, which lets recruiters collect anonymous, structured diversity data and analyse candidate trends.
Who is responsible if a candidate believes they were treated unfairly?
Hiring decisions sit with the employer, and the Recruitment Agent doesn't make them. The agent provides a scorecard and explanation, along with audit trails, so a person can make a decision based on clear evidence and can review or correct outcomes if needed. If you believe an AI system has produced an incorrect outcome, you can contact us through the chatbot, by phone or via the web form in your region's Support Centre.
How is candidate data protected when AI is used?
The Recruitment Agent only shares relevant information (for example, job title and skills) and no personally identifiable information (PII) is shared. When we use third-party AI models, we set zero-data-retention and no-training protocols. Employment Hero never sells personal data. For more information, see our Responsible AI page and Privacy Policy.