Jun 23rd 2019
AI is Not the Future of Recruitment, it’s the Now
Recruiting great talent is becoming increasingly difficult. Nowadays there are multiple platforms and sources to find great talent, from recruiters, job boards, social media sites…The possibilities seem endless. This also comes with troves of data in different formats and an information overload which ultimately results in quality candidates getting lost in the mix.
AI can work hand in hand with employers to confront this problem. Technology in recruitment is nothing new and AI is increasingly emerging throughout the recruitment process. Not only can AI reduce and automate mundane tasks but can also help match the best possible candidates in the right roles as quickly as possible. This is good for business, good for candidates and good for recruiters. But AI’s purpose in recruitment doesn’t end there.
Quick and Easy Recruiting
With the influx of CV, resumes and information from multiple sources, good quality candidates can easily slip through the cracks. Instead of spending hours sifting through the candidates, integrating AI into this process can quickly screen thousands of CVs immediately using the specific candidate criteria e.g. experience, qualifications and skills, and select a shortlist of the most appropriate candidates in an instant.
Not only does this boost the quality of the candidates chosen, but this enhanced initial screening process can even work to eliminate the initial rounds of interviews and reduce the amount of candidates HR professionals need to talk to before arriving at a shortlist.
Removing bias
Bias in hiring is a widespread problem and even though hiring managers and recruiters have the best intentions, unconscious bias can negatively affect our recruiting decisions. This can come in any form, such as leaning towards candidates with similar hobbies to a hiring manager or even subconsciously applying stereotypes.
AI recruiting software can be programmed to ignore demographic information e.g. race and gender and focus purely on candidate criteria. By reducing the likelihood of human bias AI can work to increase diversification of your workforce as well as picking the right talent for the job!
AI Chatbots
AI chatbots not only make the recruitment process more streamlined but also enhance the candidate’s experience. They can be programmed to answer candidate FAQs, organise interviews etc… all efficiently and immediately. Whether it be on your platform, or directly messaging candidates, this saves hiring managers time, eliminates human error in engaging candidates and enhances the candidate’s experience.
On a more advanced level, chatbots, such as Mya, can even help assess candidates by analysing their responses using Nature Language Processing, allowing them to see if a person can demonstrate certain skills. This bot can even fill in resume gaps and provide hiring managers with a complete view of the candidate and if they fit the role.
AI is expected to replace 16% of HR jobs within the next 10 years. But the integration of this technology doesn’t mean the human side of HR is redundant. Ironically, with AI working hand in hand with hiring managers, more time is freed up to be human. By minimizing mundane and administrative tasks through automation this not only reduces human error but also creates a more strategic HR function with the ability to focus on the softer skills such as empathy.
The key is to ensure AI and people work together. AI cannot be left to its own devices and needs human monitoring. For example, AI can learn and pick up on human bias which it may instil and even magnify, or chatbots need to be programmed and monitored to ask the right questions and respond in the right way. Reliance on human involvement will be an ongoing requirement; Collaboration between human and machine is the winning formula.