Artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) technology can both be used as great tools to help in Federal government hiring processes, according to Dr. Rebecca Ayers, group manager of HR strategy at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Dr. Ayers explained the importance of these new technologies and the abilities that they provide to allow OPM to streamline hiring processes during a talk at the Emerging Technology & Modernization Summit hosted by NextGov on March. 9.
“Another thing we’re seeing on the hiring tools is the use of AI and VR, and this ties back to the skills-based hiring,” she said. “The AI can help someone like me hire an engineer, because I can actually assess if they have the engineering skills that I need, even if I don’t know how to validate that myself.”
Ayers also noted that VR “can be used to test out things that are otherwise, you know, dangerous or too expensive.”
Although these technologies show promise as tools in the government’s hiring processes, Dr. Ayers noted that the biggest problem is changing the larger mindset of what qualifies a person for a job.
“We’ve been working across the Federal government, with Commerce and with Labor to try to break down the silos between the different systems and to infuse education as part of the solution,” she said.
