Ethnic minority talent ‘disproportionately’ affected by AI recruitment
Automated job screening is forcing 70% of ethnic minority talent to alter or hide elements of their CV, according to new research from People Like Us.
· Marketing WeekBy Charlotte Rogers 16 Sep 2026 12:01 am
Brands are being urged to rethink their use of AI hiring software, as new research reveals 60% of candidates – rising to 70% of ethnic minority talent – have altered or hidden elements of their CV from fear of being rejected by automated screening.
Ethnic minority candidates are nearly three times more likely to remove their country of origin (14% versus 5% of their white peers) from their CV, according to a survey of 2,000 UK jobseekers conducted by award-winning workplace equity organisation People Like Us (PLU) and Censuswide.
These candidates are more than twice as likely to remove religious or cultural markers (14% versus 6%), while one in 20 have even changed their name.
Most of the sample (80%) have been rejected for a job in the past two years, nearly three quarters (74%) of whom suspect at least one rejection was generated automatically without a human reading their application. Only 15% of respondents were told by an employer an automated system was used in their application.
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PLU finds ethnically diverse candidates are “disproportionately” affected as they apply for a third more roles than their white counterparts, are rejected faster (41% within an hour of applying versus 32% of their white peers) and are “significantly more likely” to remove elements of their identity from their CVs to get past automated systems.
In response to the findings, People Like Us is pushing for change with ‘Reject the Rejections’, a new campaign devised in collaboration with creative agency Worth Your While.
The campaign centres around ‘Dear [Name]’, a four-minute short film starring British actor Ebenezer Gyau. Set inside an anonymous waiting room separated by a two-way mirror, Dear [Name] turns the language of real rejection emails sent to ethnic minority candidates into a spoken-word performance. The audience hear the internal dialogue those messages spark within the candidate, ranging from self-doubt and frustration to resilience and a challenge to the system itself.
JCDecaux Community Channel is supporting the campaign over the autumn, with an initial run across 19 large-format digital sites in London from today (16 September) expected to generate an estimated 154,000 impressions, ahead of a national campaign launching in November. A 30-second cut of the film will also run as a two-week national cinema campaign from 2 October, in partnership with Pearl & Dean.
Reject the Rejections aims to raise awareness among job applicants that they may have the right to request a human review of their application if they suspect the decision was made by AI.
Developed with Planes Studio, PLU has also created a tool to help any rejected candidate ask whether automation was used on their application, while also reminding jobseekers they may have the right to request a human review under existing UK Data Protection laws.
Calling on employers to disclose the use of automation in their hiring processes and commit to independent bias audits, PLU wants the government to consider screening transparency laws.
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“Employers aren’t the villains here, most resort to automations in good faith to cope with a surging volume of applicants and four in 10 did it believing they were reducing bias,” explains People Like Us co-founder, Sheeraz Gulsher.
“However, good faith isn’t governance – when 82% of the employers who checked found outcomes vary by ethnicity, ‘We didn’t know’ stops being a defence. The Equality (Race and Disability) Bill gives the Government the vehicle to make transparency the rule to enable fairer access to jobs for all. Automation has a clear role in managing surging application numbers – but checks and balances must keep recruitment equitable for all.”
The human cost
The research reveals a serious human cost to the use of AI recruitment software.
More than a quarter (28%) of employers using automated screening don’t monitor whether outcomes differ by ethnicity or other protected characteristics. Of those who do, 82% found differences and 36% described them as ‘meaningful’.
The study finds 30% of decision-makers don’t know or aren’t sure how their own screening tool scores candidates and only around 35% of hiring managers could identify each of the rights candidates already hold under UK Data Protection law.
Almost a third (31%) of candidates have decided not to apply for a job they believed they were qualified for as they suspected AI would screen them out, rising to 39% of ethnic minority candidates.
Two-thirds of jobseekers (66%) have tried to ‘game’ recruitment software. More than a quarter (27%) have used AI tools like ChatGPT to rewrite their CV to beat AI screening, while 13% have hidden keywords in white text.
Automation has a clear role in managing surging application numbers – but checks and balances must keep recruitment equitable for all.Sheeraz Gulsher, People Like Us
The research also finds candidates are being eliminated from the recruitment process at speed. More than a third (34%) of rejected jobseekers have been turned down within an hour. For 9%, a rejection came within five minutes.
Over two-fifths (44%) of the sample have been rejected before the deadline closed and 64% of UK candidates suspect they were turned down without a person ever seeing their application. On average, jobseekers are ‘ghosted’ on over a third (35%) of their applications.
Most (81%) of the PLU respondents agree applying for jobs today feels like ‘trying to pass a test for a machine, not being seen as a person’.
Three quarters of the sample (75%) did not know they may have a legal right to request a human review of an automated rejection under UK Data Protection law, while 42% have wanted to challenge a rejection but found no way to do so. Of those who did ask for a human review, only 28% received one.
The level and pace of rejections is taking a toll on people’s mental health. Over a third (38%) of the PLU sample say rapid automated rejections knock their confidence, while 34% have been put off applying for other roles. Some 8% have sought mental health support due to job rejections, rising to 1 in 10 ethnic minority candidates.
In response to the findings, People Like Us is calling on the UK Government to mandate the disclosure of automated or AI-assisted screening in job adverts, as well as introduce mandatory independent bias audits of automated recruitment tools.
Most (71%) jobseekers say independent audits would increase their confidence in automated recruitment, while 82% believe disclosure in job adverts should be required by law.
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