Two professional job seekers have initiated a significant class-action lawsuit against the prominent AI-powered hiring platform Eightfold, alleging the company operates a covert scoring system that ranks applicants without their knowledge or consent. The legal action, filed in California's Contra Costa County Superior Court, represents a growing challenge to automated employment screening technologies.
Allegations of Covert Applicant Ranking
The plaintiffs, Erin Kistler and Sruti Bhaumik, contend that Eightfold systematically violates both the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and California's Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act. According to their complaint, the platform collects extensive personal data from applicants, including social media activity, location information, internet browsing history, and cookie data, to generate what it calls "Match Scores."
These scores allegedly rank candidates on a scale from 0 to 5 based on their perceived "likelihood of success," with lower-ranked applicants being automatically discarded before any human review occurs. The lawsuit asserts that users are neither informed about this ranking process nor provided with any mechanism to dispute or correct their scores.
Plaintiffs' Professional Backgrounds
Erin Kistler, a computer science graduate with nearly two decades of product management experience, reportedly failed to secure a single interview after using Eightfold to apply for senior positions at PayPal. Similarly, Sruti Bhaumik, an experienced project manager, received automatic rejections from Microsoft roles just two days after submitting applications through the platform.
Broader Implications for AI Hiring
The legal filing highlights concerning statistics about AI adoption in recruitment, noting that approximately two-thirds of large corporations now use similar technologies to screen candidates, with up to 38 percent employing AI software specifically for ranking and matching applicants. This case raises fundamental questions about transparency and fairness in automated hiring processes.
According to the complaint, Eightfold's large language model draws from "more than 1 million job titles, 1 million skills, and the profiles of more than 1 billion people" to make inferences about applicants' "preferences, characteristics, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities and aptitudes"—all without applicants' knowledge or permission.
Legal Representation and Damages Sought
David Seligman, Executive Director at Towards Justice and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, described the situation as "a dystopian AI-driven marketplace, where robots operating behind the scenes are making decisions about the most important things in our lives: whether we get a job or housing or healthcare."
The plaintiffs are seeking both actual and statutory damages ranging from $100 to $1,000 for each violation under federal law, plus $10,000 per violation under California statutes. The Independent has reached out to Eightfold for comment regarding these allegations.
This lawsuit emerges as scrutiny intensifies around algorithmic decision-making in employment, particularly concerning data privacy, transparency requirements, and the potential for automated systems to perpetuate bias while operating without adequate human oversight or accountability mechanisms.
