Often managers assume that because the software is devoid of emotions (unlike humans), using them would mean the complete removal of personally-motivated bias from the hiring process. Any application of AI (Artificial Intelligence) or Machine Learning (ML) learns from the existing data fed to it. This raises concerns such as an amplification of pre-existing bias in the data that have made hiring managers approach them with caution. Amazon's experiment into an AI-based recruiting system was scrapped after it started penalizing resumes that included the term "women's" or names of women's colleges. Essentially, the software taught itself to prefer resumes of male candidates over those of female candidates.

Adam Rogers is the CTO of Ultimate Software, where he began his career in 1997 as Ultimate Software's very first intern and quickly became a leading innovator in the field. In 2002, Adam led his team to deliver the very first Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud Enterprise solution, redefining industry standards by bringing HCM to the cloud. Today, he serves Ultimate as CTO and holds the unique distinction of leading both product innovation and corporate IT strategy. Adam's teams are routinely recognized for their industry-leading innovations and Adam's thought leadership work is regularly published in Forbes, InformationWeek, and a variety of online blogs and publications. You can follow Adam on Twitter @adamr or connect with him on LinkedIn.

It's becoming a trend in itself to predict trends this time of year. One that has come up a lot more often lately has been the prediction that recruiting itself will die in the coming years. This specific trend has some recruiters panicked but others scoffing at the possibilities and angrily commenting on these Nostradamus style posts. Mostly because the people who have been in recruiting for awhile know that this is a human to human business where people must have the guts to fight for the right people despite their non-traditional backgrounds. They also know that to truly recruit and source efficiently, you must be a forever student.