ManufAi

Here, I have another topic inspired by Reddit posts. If you’ve tried hiring or job hunting in supply chain lately, you’ve probably met our new middle manager: AI. It doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile, it doesn’t show up to interviews, but somehow, it’s quietly deciding who gets them. From automated resume screeners to AI interview bots with the emotional range of a potato, the hiring process has officially turned into a mix of technology, psychology, and mild chaos. And coming from someone who’s been both the hunted and the hunter or to sound politically correct, candidate one year, hiring manager the next, I can confidently say AI has made talent acquisition both faster and more confusing than ever. To be clear, I am not saying “faster” = Effiicient

Entry-Level Candidates: The Hunger Games, Sponsored by Keywords

Let’s start at the ground floor — the fresh grads and junior analysts excited to enter the world of moving boxes and balancing safety stock. Spoiler alert: they’re not competing with other humans anymore. They’re competing with algorithms that don’t care about potential, just phrasing. An entry-level candidate might be a whiz at logistics planning, but if their resume doesn’t use the word “S&OP” exactly 3.5 times and spell it the same way the job description did, the AI gatekeeper decides they lack “strategic alignment.” Some of the best candidates I’ve interviewed never made it past the automated screen because they wrote like humans, not like optimized resumes. And the interviewing bots? Oh, they’re a treat. AI now judges facial expressions, tone, and confidence during “digital interviews.” This is not made up, I swear. HireVue officially says its current models do not use video to interpret facial expressions as part of scoring. However, in the past, they did use facial analysis features (and… faced backlash and legal complaints) but discontinued it because of some concerns.

I digress… But, usage of emotional AI platforms (like Microsoft Face API) is great, except when you lose points because your mic lagged while explaining your love for Kanban.

Mid-Level Professionals: The Dazed and Confused Tier

Then there’s the mid-level crowd aka the supply chain specialists and managers who’ve seen it all: RFID hype, blockchain dreams, and the rise of remote everything. These folks now navigate talent systems designed to “streamline” recruitment but somehow add 12 extra steps. AI tools help HR teams filter candidates faster and analyze backgrounds for skill matches. It’s efficient in theory, but in practice? Many solid professionals get filtered out because their career paths don’t fit the algorithm’s perfect box which apparently assumes everyone’s stayed in one industry, one role, and never survived a merger. The algorithm loves clean, linear careers. The problem? Supply chain careers are rarely clean. They’re mergers, ERP failures, promotions by survival, and “temporary” roles that lasted four years.

What AI does get right is identifying transferable skills: the planner who can code a Python script or the buyer who can automate a supplier dashboard. But someone still has to notice that the system buried those gems in its “Other Candidates” folder.

Senior Leaders: The Executive Illusion

For senior-level supply chain pros, AI plays a different role. It’s less about filtering resumes and more about image management. Suddenly, every executive’s LinkedIn bio looks like it was written by ChatGPT, with words like “transformational,” “resilient ecosystems,” and “digitally orchestrated excellence.” AI can help HR scan thousands of profiles for leadership traits, analyze tone, or even predict “culture fit.” But culture fit to an AI is like taste to a printer. It has no idea what it’s talking about. And while executives like to name-drop AI during interviews (“We’re exploring machine learning to predict demand volatility”), ask them what data they’re feeding the model, and you’ll get the same silence you get when someone mentions ERP testing.

The HR Side: Blessing or Bureaucratic Overlord?

For HR professionals, AI recruiting tools are both savior and saboteur. They handle repetitive tasks like scheduling, screening, and sending polite rejection emails that begin with “After careful consideration…” (we all know no one considered anything). But rely too much on them, and HR loses the human edge, the ability to spot the planner who doesn’t look perfect on paper but can single-handedly fix a broken warehouse process. AI automates patterns. HR understands people. And that’s a distinction technology still hasn’t cracked.

To be clear, this isn’t an HR problem, it’s an over-delegation problem.

My take

AI won’t fix hiring. It’ll amplify what’s already there. Efficiency if you’ve got clear data, Chaos if you don’t. In hiring, as in operations, the reality is simple: bad input data equals bad outcomes. My favorite quote which you would have read on my other posts.. Garbage-in=Garbage-out. If job descriptions are generic, resumes are keyword-stuffed, and hiring goals are fuzzy, AI just automates the mess faster. The future hiring win isn’t about humans versus AI, it’s about humans who can use AI without outsourcing common sense. Supply chain pros know this well. You’d never give a machine full control of your inventory without checking the logic first. Why should hiring be any different?

So yes, let the bots schedule the interviews, send the follow-ups, and flag the candidates. But the actual decision-making? That still belongs with someone who knows that “on-time delivery” isn’t the only sign of potential, but sometimes it’s knowing how to handle the late truck.

If you wouldn’t let an algorithm run your factory unsupervised, don’t let it decide who’s allowed to walk into it.