Kmart slashes hiring time with AI-powered chatbot

Ah, Kmart has discovered the miracle of AI-powered hiring. Their chatbot now reduces recruitment time by 75%—from 44 agonising days to a brisk 11.8. And it saved them $6 million. Splendid. Because nothing says 'we care about the candidate experience' like outsourcing the entire early-stage process to a bot that probably asks applicants if they've considered the self-checkout.

The $6 million in savings presumably comes from slashing the human recruiters who used to do the job. But don't worry, Kmart says those roles will be 'repurposed'—translated: reassigned to stock shelves or pushed into the ever-growing pool of retail workers waiting for a chatbot to tell them whether they're worthy of a shift. The 75% efficiency gain is real, but let's not pretend it's about anything other than cutting payroll.

And here's the kicker: Kmart's AI is only as good as the data it's trained on. Which means that if the bot inherits any biases from historical hiring patterns, it'll just accelerate those biases at 75% faster speed. But hey—faster rejections! More time for candidates to apply elsewhere! Truly a win-win, as long as you're not the one trying to get past the gatekeeper.