AI Recruiting Tools May Disadvantage Mid-Career Women, Study Finds

Thousands of experienced professional women are reporting an unprecedented struggle to secure employment, with many pointing to AI-powered recruiting systems as a potential barrier.

Stacey Duguid, 52, spent 16 months submitting what she calls "gazillions" of CVs after decades in senior fashion industry roles. Despite never previously struggling to find work, she received mostly automated rejections. When she posted about her experience on social media, thousands of women her age responded with similar stories.

"AI holds a mirror up to society. It's a reflection of our bias," Duguid told the BBC, which first reported these findings. "My point is about gendered ageism."

Why it matters

As AI screening becomes standard in corporate hiring, the technology may be systematically filtering out qualified candidates based on patterns that disadvantage women who took career breaks or have longer work histories. With UK firms potentially facing over £750 million in severance costs as automation displaces hundreds of thousands of women's jobs by 2035, according to the City of London Women Pivoting to Digital Taskforce, the economic implications extend far beyond individual job searches.

The scale of the problem

The BBC spoke with more than 60 women aged 40 to 65 across various industries who described similar experiences. Most hold decades of senior-level experience yet report submitting hundreds of applications with minimal response.

Koeyli Jaluka, 49, was headhunted for roles throughout the past decade. After being made redundant nine months ago, she has applied for 442 positions with only a handful of responses. Career coaches have advised her to remove the first 10 years of her work history to avoid appearing overqualified—what she believes is "code for old."

Anna Cowie, 52, worked in advertising for 30 years, most recently helping launch the Battersea Power Station project. After nearly four years of unemployment and countless applications, she now relies on jobseeker's allowance.

How AI screening may introduce bias

AI lawyer Laura Holden, founder of Bonsai AI consultancy, explained that many companies don't fully understand how their recruiting tools function. Some systems grade CVs from A to D, pushing lower-ranked candidates out of consideration. Others flag career gaps—common among women who took parental leave—as noteworthy factors that may influence decisions.

"There is a lack of regulation globally that requires providers to show how their tools work," Holden said. While vendors market these systems as decision-support tools, she argues they often function as automated decision-making systems that encourage rejecting large numbers of applicants based on algorithmic scores.

Dr. Eleanor Drage, a senior researcher at the University of Cambridge, said human recruiters are better equipped to recognize the value of candidates returning from career breaks and the transferable skills they bring—qualities AI may overlook. She called the logic underlying many AI recruiting tools "completely faulty" because they cannot assess intrinsic value or personality.

Industry response

The BBC reports that some London-based companies have stopped using AI recruiting tools due to bias concerns. Workday, a major HR software provider facing a California lawsuit over alleged discriminatory screening, told the BBC its tools don't make hiring decisions and that its AI "does not consider traits such as age or gender." The company said its systems are "rigorously tested" and help qualified candidates avoid "getting lost in the pile."

The City of London Women Pivoting to Digital Taskforce found that 68% of over 1,000 women surveyed said their employers had not offered opportunities to retrain or transition into digital roles. Chair Caroline Haines warned that losing mid-career women from the workforce carries "huge repercussions" when the country needs economic growth.

A UK government spokesperson said existing equality and data protection laws apply to AI systems, adding that authorities "will act where additional protections are needed."

These findings were first reported by the BBC.