Advice for Employers and Recruiters
The new EU AI Act requires employers to be transparent with job applicants
We published an article a few weeks ago about the impact of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act on job boards, applicant tracking systems, and other talent acquisition technology that ranks, scores, and matches candidates against job openings.
To help better understand the new requirements, we reached out to James Cranwell, head of product at 5app, an AI-powered learning technology provider. According to James, AI-powered hiring systems that rank, score, or match candidates against job openings are “not about to become illegal under the EU AI Act. However, many of them are very likely to fall into the Act’s ‘high-risk’ category, which introduces significant compliance obligations.”
He continued:
Under Annex III of the EU AI Act, AI systems used for ‘recruitment or selection of natural persons’ or systems that influence employment-related decisions are explicitly classified as high risk. That means AI used to rank, score, filter or recommend candidates to employers will almost certainly be captured within the high-risk category if deployed within the EU market.
The key distinction is not whether AI is being used, but how much influence it has over employment outcomes. A simple matching or recommendation layer may still qualify as high risk if it materially affects who progresses through recruitment processes. Systems that automatically reject candidates or prevent them from applying based on AI scoring would likely attract even greater scrutiny because they directly impact access to employment opportunities.
High-risk classification does not mean these tools are banned. It means providers and deployers must meet obligations around:
- documented risk management
- human oversight
- transparency
- bias and data governance
- logging and traceability
- and conformity assessments
It’s crucial for companies using these ‘high-risk’ AI screening and scoring tools to ensure they know exactly how user data is being used, and that they communicate that transparently with job seekers.
