Effects of Applicants' Use of Generative AI in Personnel Selection: Towards a More Nuanced View?

Abstract

Generative AI (GenAI) has made rapid inroads in assessment, as a growing number of applicants rely on it as a coach in unproctored assessments of various selection procedures. This had led to assertions that applicants' GenAI use undermines key assumptions of the predictive model underlying selection and is thus disruptive for organizations' current unproctored assessments, thereby invoking various strategies of organizations to deter and detect its use. In this provocation article, we present a more nuanced view. To this end, we start by reviewing the recent research related to the effects of applicants' use of GenAI in assessment and discuss the evidence of the potential of applicant GenAI use to disrupt assessment validity. Next, we draw on test coaching frameworks to discuss three scenarios of how applicants' use of GenAI might affect an assessment's mean scores and criterion-related validity. These perspectives highlight that the use of GenAI might not only exert negative consequences but potentially have also positive consequences for both applicants and organizations. It is pivotal to distinguish among these scenarios because they lead to different strategies for organizations to deal with applicant use of GenAI.