What can you do?

Practical guidance for employers using automated hiring tools, from a legal expert, a People Like Us co-founder and someone with lived experience of automated rejection.

• Employer obligations

  Tom Heys — Pay Transparency and AI Specialist at Lewis Silkin

  

  If you're using AI to screen or assess candidates, you can't outsource responsibility for the decision to the technology.

  UK data protection and equality law place clear obligations on employers, on transparency, on discrimination and bias, and on making sure the right safeguards are in place.

  Where human review is required, it needs to be meaningful. The person reviewing the decision needs the information, authority and ability to properly assess it, not simply rubber-stamp what the system says.

  AI can help with recruitment. But responsibility for the decision stays with the employer.

• 5 tips for businesses using automated hiring tools

  Darain Faraz — Co-Founder, People Like Us

  
  1. Audit your outcomes, not just your intentions. Look at who your system actually screens out, broken down by ethnicity, not just whether it was "designed to be fair." Good intentions and biased outcomes can coexist. Audit regularly, not annually. Some roles get hundreds of applications, so waiting a year means hundreds could be discriminated against before the bias is spotted.
  2. Don't let the tool make the final call alone. Automated tools should filter out the clearly unqualified, but judgment calls on anyone borderline belong to a person, not the system. Tools should help you decide, not decide for you.
  3. Check who trained your tool, and on what. Ask your vendor what data it was trained on and whether it's been tested for bias. Ask too whether it's still learning from live applications or was trained once and repeats that logic ever since. Both carry risk: one narrows in on a very specific type of candidate, the other repeats an early error at scale. If they can't answer, that's your answer.
  4. Give candidates a real explanation, not a form response. A generic "unfortunately, on this occasion" email erodes trust. Tell candidates plainly if a system screened them out with no human review, and why. If it can't explain why, it isn't a very good system.
  5. Bring diverse voices into the process design, not just the interview panel. The people best placed to spot bias are often those with lived experience of it. The decision on which tool to use usually sits with HR or IT, so involve your DEI leads whenever a screening tool comes in. It's not just a tech project.

• What businesses get wrong about rejection

  Vivi Koroma Kala — Jobseeker

  
  1. Applicants want to feel like a person, not a data point. When you apply for a job, that's really all you're asking for.
  2. Basic things matter. An acknowledgement that your application landed, a realistic timeline, and an actual update, even if it's a no.
  3. Silence is the worst part. Not hearing anything, ever, after putting yourself out there says more about a company than any careers page ever could.
  4. If a decision came from a system, own that. Don't hide behind "unfortunately, on this occasion" and pretend a person read it.
  5. Treat rejection as a moment to keep the relationship, not end it. The companies that get it right know the difference between "no, and goodbye" and "no, but here's why, and stay in touch."

Practical guidance if you think an automated system has played a part in your rejection, from a legal expert and People Like Us.

• Individual rights

  Tom Heys — Pay Transparency and AI Specialist at Lewis Silkin

  

  There are important legal protections around the use of AI to screen or reject job applicants.

  UK data protection law restricts certain decisions based solely on automated processing, particularly where they have legal or similarly significant effects.

  Where those rules apply, individuals may have rights to safeguards including human intervention, the opportunity to give their point of view, and to contest the decision.

  Employers need to understand when those protections apply and make sure the recruitment process reflects them, including being clear about where automation is being used, what safeguards are in place and how an individual's circumstances can be properly considered.

• 5 tips for jobseekers facing automated rejections

  Darain Faraz — Co-Founder, People Like Us

  
  1. It's not always you, it's the system. A same-day or overnight rejection is often a filter, not a judgement on your ability. Don't let an algorithm's decision shape how you see your own worth.
  2. Know you're not powerless. If an automated system played a role in rejecting you, UK data protection law gives you three rights: to know that automation was used, to ask how the decision was reached, and to challenge it and request a human review. Employers are supposed to tell you upfront, but if they haven't (check the small print), you can ask. These aren't polite requests, they're legal rights.
  3. Learn to beat the bots at their own game. Automated tools scan for keywords, but they're getting smarter. Copying and pasting the job description into your CV won't work, and could backfire at interview. Instead, translate your real experience into the employer's language: if they say "stakeholder engagement" and you'd say "client liaison," use theirs. Keep your CV clean, no text boxes, no graphics, no columns, and spell out acronyms in full. Make it easy for the machine to read you, but make sure what it reads is true.
  4. Keep a record of every application. Save the job description, your CV version, and the date and time you applied and were rejected. If you ever want to challenge a decision or spot a pattern, you'll need this evidence.
  5. Find your people. Rejection in isolation feels personal — a problem shared is a problem halved. Talk to others going through something similar, share what's working, and lean on your networks for support and perspective.