Know Your Rights: Has AI Kept You From A Job?  

In Texas

Many states such as California and New York have specific policies regulating the use of AI or other automated processes in hiring. 

Under Texas law, there are basic rights that all people have in the hiring process. Namely, discrimination based on race, sex, and ability. You can file a complaint to the Texas Workforce Commission if you feel that these rights have been violated. 

However, there are no specific laws regulating employers use of these automated systems. 

These recommendations are from the ACLU, you can find the full collection of Know Your Rights articles here

About Automated Hiring

Equal access to job opportunities is a core component of economic justice. Increasingly, employers are using automated tools in their hiring processes, including for advertising job opportunities, screening applications, assessing candidates, and conducting interviews.

These tools can perpetuate existing bias in hiring and employment or enable new kinds of digital discrimination based on race, gender, disability, and other protected characteristics in ways that may be difficult to detect. 

How are automated tools used in the hiring process?

Automated decision-making tools, including tools that rely on artificial intelligence (AI), are widely used by employers at every stage of the hiring process, including for advertising job opportunities, reviewing resumes, conducting interviews, and more. 

These tools can enable discrimination or exacerbate discrimination related to race, gender, disability, or other protected characteristics in many different ways. 

For example, one resume screening tool identified being named “Jared” and playing high school lacrosse as correlated with being a successful employee. Another screening tool demonstrated gender bias by downgrading resumes of applicants who attended women’s colleges or participated in women’s sports. 

Many of these tools claim to measure vague and subjective personality traits like “optimism” or “extroversion.” Traits that research indicates may not be possible to meaningfully predict, are often not necessary for performing the job, and can screen out candidates with disabilities. 

Some tools that rely on automated analysis of a candidate’s facial, verbal, or physical interactions with a computer raise additional concerns that candidates may be screened out or scored lower based on legally protected characteristics. These concerns are especially significant because people often do not know when or how automated tools are used to evaluate their job applications. You can learn more about how automated tools are used in the hiring process here.

How can you tell if your application was sorted by an automated hiring tool? 

• You are asked to record a video or voice clip where you respond to interview questions — rather than talking to a human directly for an interview. While a human may be watching the recordings, it is possible that the employer is using software to analyze these recordings, and the software may make recommendations based on the videos without human input.

• You have to interact with a chatbot as part of the application process. Employers commonly use chatbots, which are automated tools used to send and receive messages, to collect applications, filter candidates, and schedule interviews. Some of these chatbots may be designed to encourage or discourage applications based on answers to specific questions, and it may be difficult or impossible to know how your answers will impact your application.

• Your application for a role is automatically or quickly rejected. If you get an email or message saying that your application has been rejected soon after you applied — perhaps within a few minutes or hours of applying — an automated system may have been used to screen out your job application.

• You are asked to take a test or survey on a computer, mobile phone, or other electronic device as part of the application during the hiring process. These tests may include personality tests, questionnaires about your feelings, or other types of assessments. The test or survey may not be about your knowledge, or may not even have right or wrong answers. The test or survey may instead ask you about how scenarios, photos, or words make you feel, whether they describe you, or how you would react to them. Employers commonly use these assessments to make decisions about whether to advance your application in the hiring process.

• You are asked to play a game on an electronic device as part of the application process. These games may appear to be related to the role for which you are applying, like a game that asks you to figure out how to stack boxes by weight as part of the application process for a package handler role. Or they may seem unrelated to the role, like mini-games that ask you to inflate a balloon to win fake money. Like tests and surveys, employers may use results from these games to make decisions about your job application.

• The hiring platform cannot comprehend your request for an accommodation. If you ask for a reasonable accommodation related to a disability and the platform does not understand your request or respond appropriately, the employer may be using an automated system to respond to your inquiries. This commonly happens when employers use chatbots to collect application information and screen applicants and the chatbots cannot understand or process your request.

• You are directed to another company’s website while applying for the job. When employers use automated tools to collect and review applications, they often purchase these tools from third-party software vendors. If you are applying for a job online and you are directed to a website besides the employer’s website to apply for the role, a third-party software vendor may be using automated tools to evaluate your application materials.

What are your digital rights when automated tools are used in the hiring process?

• Federal anti-discrimination laws prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, race or ethnicity, whether you have a disability, and other characteristics. State and local laws may provide additional protections.

• More employers are using automated systems to search for candidates, evaluate job applicants, and make hiring decisions — but your rights don’t disappear just because an employer may be using automated or online tools. Anti-discrimination laws still apply and still protect your job opportunities.

• Several states have also recently enacted laws that affect how employers or third-party companies can use your personal information when you apply for jobs online, giving you more digital rights over your data and more transparency into how you may be evaluated by automated systems.