Hilke Schellmann, an Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist and associate professor of journalism at New York University, will visit the University of Florida as the Fall 2026 Business Journalist in Residence to discuss how artificial intelligence is transforming hiring and threatening fairness in the workplace.
Schellmann will give a free public talk, “Broken Signals: AI Hiring and the Threat to Economic Justice,” at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17, in 130 Bryan Hall. The discussion will be moderated by UF journalism student Natalie Kaufman. Copies of Schellmann’s book will be available for purchase from the UF Bookstore at the event. More information is available on the UF events calendar.
For eight years, Schellmann has investigated how employers use AI to evaluate job applicants, from résumé screening and personality assessments to automated video interviews. Her reporting has exposed flaws in these increasingly common tools, including algorithms that reward biased keywords, unreliable personality predictions and transcription software that performs poorly for people with speech disabilities.
Schellmann is the author of The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired—and Why We Need to Fight Back Now, which examines the growing influence of AI on employment decisions. Her investigations have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and MIT Technology Review.
During her talk, Schellmann will explore how AI-generated job applications and automated screening have created an escalating technological arms race between applicants and employers. She will discuss how these trends may undermine traditional hiring practices and push employers toward personal referral networks that can limit opportunities for qualified candidates. She will also share practical advice for students entering an increasingly automated job market.
The discussion will be moderated by Kaufman, a senior journalism major with a minor in economics. Kaufman recently covered personal technology as a reporting intern at The Wall Street Journal and previously served as the first business enterprise reporter at The Independent Florida Alligator. She currently reports for WUFT and publishes a newsletter focused on business and technology.
During her UF visit, Schellmann will also meet with students and engage with faculty and researchers. Her visit is part of UF’s Business Journalist in Residence program, which brings leading business and economics reporters to campus to share their expertise and foster connections between academia and the newsroom.
The program is organized and supported by the Warrington College of Business and the College of Journalism and Communications.