Purpose
These guidelines describe how you can use artificial intelligence (AI) tools when you apply for a job with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Commission). They also explain when you shouldn’t use AI.
These guidelines can help you use AI to help you apply for a role without affecting your integrity (honesty) as a candidate.
What the guidelines cover
These guidelines are for anyone applying for a role with the Commission. This includes current employees and external candidates. They cover all stages of recruitment – from preparing written applications to taking part in interviews and completing assessments.
As AI technology keeps changing, we may update these guidelines to stay current and make sure they’re fair and fit for purpose.
How we use AI in recruitment
We want to be transparent about how we use AI in our recruitment processes. We may use AI to be more efficient, such as to help draft job advertisements or prepare information packs for candidates. However, we don’t use AI to assess, review or filter applications or résumés. We also don’t allow external recruitment agencies to use AI for these purposes.
A human selection panel makes all decisions about shortlisting and progressing applicants. This makes sure that we assess every candidate fairly and individually.
What we expect of candidates
While we know that AI can help you during the recruitment process, we also expect all our candidates to take part with integrity and honesty.
The community trusts the Commission. Our people act with integrity, make ethical decisions and follow the Australian Public Service (APS) Values. To keep that trust, we need to make sure our recruitment processes are fair and based on each person’s merit (skills and suitability for the job). That means we expect you to be genuine and truthful in your application and during the recruitment process.
When applying for a role with us, we expect you to:
- be honest
- Only include information that genuinely shows your own skills, experiences and achievements. Use your own knowledge when answering questions in your written applications, skills assessments or interviews.
- be transparent (open and honest)
- If you use AI tools, tell us. You need to tell us how you used AI tools to support or improve your answers during the recruitment process. This helps us understand what you did and makes sure the process is fair.
- be yourself
- We want to know who you are. Show us your own ideas, your skills and your understanding of the role. AI can help you prepare, but during an interview or other skills assessments, you need to talk about your own experiences and show your skills without using AI.
- be fair
- Using AI in the wrong way could give you an unfair advantage. This conflicts with the APS merit-based recruitment principles.
We set these expectations to support a fair, merit-based and transparent recruitment process. One that acknowledges the different strengths of each candidate.
Risks of using AI in recruitment
Using AI to support you to apply for jobs and with recruitment processes can be helpful, but it also comes with risks. These include:
- misrepresentation (exaggerating and giving false information)
- AI generated content might not match your real skills and experience. This could damage your credibility and may affect the assessment phase of the recruitment process. This could disqualify you from the merit-based process.
- skill gaps
- AI might hide areas where your skills don’t match the job you’re applying for. These gaps will come out during practical assessments or on-the-job performance.
- over-reliance on AI
- If you depend too much on AI, you might struggle to explain your thoughts clearly or answer questions in interviews.
- losing your personal voice
- Using AI can make your application sound too generic. This might not show your unique personality, passion, or how suitable you are for the role.
- incorrect information
- AI can sometimes produce incorrect information. It can generate misleading or untrue statements that sound convincing.
- data privacy
- Sharing your personal information with AI tools can create privacy risks. Some tools don’t protect your personal data very well. This could lead to data breaches or misuse of your personal information
How to use AI the right way
If you choose to use AI, do it responsibly.
- Use AI as for support, not as a substitute.
- AI can help you organise your ideas or improve your writing. It shouldn’t replace your unique ideas, perspective and voice. Always closely check AI’s suggestions. Don’t just copy and paste what AI tells you.
- Use AI to prepare, not perform.
- It’s okay to use AI to help you get ready for an interview or other assessment task. But we expect that you won’t use AI to help you during the interview or assessment. For those activities, you must use your own skills.
- Make sure you don’t share personal, classified or sensitive information.
- When you use AI, assume that any prompts or supporting information you enter could become public.
- Be accurate, open and genuine.
- Make sure everything you include in your application, and throughout the recruitment process, is true and based on your own experience, skills knowledge and ideas. Giving us any false statements or information during the recruitment process can disqualify you. It can also lead to disciplinary action under the APS Code of Conduct, if you’re already employed in the APS.
We want to learn about the real you. Your authenticity matters to us. We’re interested in your background, insights, and what you can bring to the role and the Commission.
