AI is increasingly shaping how recruitment works. CharityJob’s latest research shows young people are particularly concerned about its impact on fairness, transparency and access to opportunity.
Somewhere between clicking ‘apply’ and receiving a rejection, a growing number of people are disappearing from the recruitment process altogether. There’s no feedback. No interview. No opportunity to explain who they are or what they could become.
CharityJob’s latest research into AI and recruitment raises some uncomfortable questions about how hiring is changing. Artificial intelligence is often framed as a tool that makes recruitment faster and fairer. In reality, for many young jobseekers, I often wonder, could it be doing the opposite?
Young people are the most uneasy about AI’s growing role in recruitment. Those aged 24 and under are consistently more concerned than older candidates about its impact on job opportunities and fairness. They are also the most likely to say they would rather a recruiter reviewed their application than an algorithm.
That matters enormously for young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). This group includes 16 to 24-year-olds navigating disrupted education, caring responsibilities, health challenges or periods of unemployment. Many are actively engaging with further education, training providers and employability programmes to get back on track. There is a risk that younger people, particularly those already facing disruption, feel this uncertainty most acutely.
Yet CharityJob’s research suggests even recruiters themselves are uneasy about this approach. Only around three in ten recruiters currently use AI in hiring. And just one in five say they trust AI’s recommendations. The majority oppose its use in final hiring decisions. The research also shows that nearly two thirds of candidates would feel disadvantaged if AI were used to screen their application, rising further among younger respondents. At the same time, almost seven in ten candidates say it has become harder to stand out as more applicants use AI to optimise CVs and cover letters.
For young jobseekers, this creates a double bind. They are encouraged to show motivation, transferable skills and individuality, yet are competing in a system that they perceive to be increasingly rewarding standardisation and pattern-matching.
Recruiters themselves are not convinced that AI improves fairness. Fewer than one in four believe it makes recruitment fairer. And confidence in its ability to reduce bias has fallen sharply over the past year. Concerns about transparency, overreliance and the risk of overlooking strong candidates remain widespread.
According to our research, AI use appears to be focused on driving efficiencies in things like scheduling interviews and sending bulk responses, rather than at the early screening stage, where decisions matter most.
While AI use is highest among candidates aged 25-49, younger candidates under 24 stand out not for heavier usage, but for significantly higher levels of concern about AI’s impact on fairness and job opportunities. For under-24s, AI already feels like a threat rather than an opportunity: 86 per cent are concerned about its future, 91 per cent want a human recruiter, not an algorithm, reviewing their application, and 67 per cent believe AI is reducing job opportunities. What they are asking for instead is transparency, proportionality and human judgement at the points that matter most.
Yet transparency is exactly where the system is currently falling short. More than nine in ten candidates believe recruiters should be open if they are using AI to assess applications, but most say they have never been told whether this is happening. On the employer side, the picture is just as concerning, with nearly eight in ten recruiters admitting they have no formal guidelines on the use of AI in recruitment and offering little or no guidance to candidates.
In the absence of clear policies, young jobseekers are left guessing. They don’t know when AI is being used, how decisions are made or whether their skills are being assessed fairly. If we are serious about widening access to work for young jobseekers, AI cannot be allowed to become another invisible barrier. Young people don’t need the odds stacked further against them. They need a fair shot and someone, preferably an actual human somewhere in the process, willing to actually look.
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