The Association of RecTech Providers (ARTP) has launched the UK's first national Recruitment Technology Standard in Parliament, a framework that matters to institute professionals as it gives employers an independent benchmark for trusting AI-driven hiring tools rather than relying on vendor claims alone. The standard supports AI enhancing recruitment decisions rather than replacing human judgement, and was launched by Lord Ranger of Northwood of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

ARTP is the UK's first trade association for the online hiring sector, representing technology providers responsible for more than 200 million job applications a year. It operates as part of the Better Hiring Institute.

The standard responds to a quantified cost of broken hiring rather than a general ethics statement.

The National Hiring Strategy found that broken hiring costs the UK 75 billion pounds annually, according to Onrec. That figure gives ARTP's roughly 200 million annual job applications under management direct relevance to a specific, large-scale economic problem rather than an abstract concern about hiring technology.

ARTP chair Christopher Platts said, "Recruitment technology increasingly determines who gets seen, shortlisted and hired. This excellent new recruitment standard puts ethics at the heart of recruitment technology: fairness, transparency and human judgement must remain central wherever AI has a hand in decisions that shape people's working lives." Lord Clement-Jones said the standard "puts ethics at the heart of recruitment technology," while Disclosure and Barring Service executive director Ian Johnstone described it as an "independent benchmark" for safer employer decisions.

For the sector, a voluntary industry standard launched in Parliament, rather than through a trade press release, signals an attempt to pre-empt statutory regulation of AI in hiring before it arrives. For the sector's employers specifically, an independent benchmark offers a due diligence reference point as they evaluate competing recruitment technology vendors.

Whether voluntary adoption spreads across the market, rather than remaining confined to ARTP's own membership, will determine whether this standard heads off formal regulation or simply becomes one certification among many.

Source: HR News / Onrec