Leaders pride themselves on hiring the best talent, but, like many things, a machine can do better.

One software company developed an online aptitude test that asks for nothing more than an email address before taking it. The applicant’s success on the test is amazingly predictive of how well the new employee will perform. And wherever the company used the test as the primary hiring criterion, the company’s workforce reflects the community’s demographics.

No affirmative action or special outreach required.

The artificial intelligence behind the test proves yet again how time spent screening resumes, checking references and interviewing candidates is mostly wasted. The biggest problem with recruiting is not the candidate pool, but the hiring manager’s human foibles.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Bosses need to check their privilege, a sense of impunity can lead to disaster

When managers have discretion, they favor people who look like them, act like them and attended similar schools to them. Some still use the obnoxious term “cultural fit” rather than confront their biases.

Managers too often hire a mini-me.

“Firms can improve worker quality by limiting managerial discretion,” a 2015 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded. “When faced with similar applicant pools, managers who exercise more discretion (as measured by their likelihood of overruling job test recommendations) systematically end up with worse hires.”

Catalyte, the software company with 750 developers, has recruited programmers based on aptitude tests for 18 years. CEO Jacob Hsu told a session at the South by Southwest Interactive Conference that more than 90 percent of the applicants who score well on the test complete the company’s training course in computer programing and become a productive employee.

“A lady who came in from cleaning hotels and a person who had studied computer science at a university ended up at the same spot in six years in terms of income and job positions,” Hsu said, citing a study tracking Catalyte trainees. “An average person coming in making $27,000 a year, their first job after leaving the company was $90,000.”

The aptitude test Catalyte developed appears to have little to do with programming. Applicants must solve a series of questions using the Internet, but the AI cares little about the answers. The computer is looking at keystrokes and browsing windows to see how the applicant is answering the questions to test their aptitude for coding, Hsu said.

“AI really can level the playing field,” he added.

Arena, a Catalyte spinoff, uses AI to help match workers with health care jobs using data science. The company collects data about the applicants, the organization’s goals and current employees to matchmake.

Arena tries to prevent hiring managers from making poor or biased decisions, said Myra Norton, president and chief operating officer of Arena.

“For me, it is about marrying together human judgment and perspective and experience with the power that can come from the data,” Norton said.

Headlines are full of examples of artificial intelligence showing the same biases as humans. Norton highlighted the risk and said programmers must watch the AI closely when training the algorithm. But that doesn’t mean AI cannot make a difference.

“Can we do better to hire a diverse workforce? Can we create better opportunities for more people? Can we do a better job of matching people to roles where they are going to be successful and they are going to achieve outcomes that are meaningful to the organization?” she asked. “If we can do that with these tools, then we should pursue that.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: Tech opportunities abound in cyberwarfare work, especially in San Antonio

Catalyte and Arena help other companies use AI for hiring. And while some employers will scoff at giving an exam more weight than an interview and references, those are probably the same companies that should look at their hiring patterns.

Catalyte’s hiring in Baltimore produced a workforce that perfectly reflected the city’s demographics. Compare that to other tech companies.

One of the saddest truths of human nature is that we think we can predict someone’s personality, intelligence or aptitude by merely looking at them. But Catalyte’s tests show that computer programmers are perfectly distributed in every demographic. So are writers, engineers, artists and salespeople.

With a little ingenuity, some expertise and an open mind, most employers could come up with an aptitude test for their jobs. What takes discipline, though, is emphasizing a person’s scores and not their appearance or resume.

When unemployment is this low, companies need to think more creatively about recruiting and commit to more training. A good AI aptitude test could help solve several hiring problems at once.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

chris.tomlinson@chron.com

twitter.com/cltomlinson