8 Ways Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Transforming Recruitment
The landscape of recruitment is constantly evolving, seeking out, interviewing, and shortlisting potential new hires can be a labour-intensive process for HR, recruiters and small business alike. To some degree, recruiters and hiring managers have resisted handing over the process to artificial intelligence (AI). After all, how can these systems be trusted to handle matters of human capital? Leaders in talent acquisition must, however, keep pace with the evolving ecosystem of supporting technologies to enhance outcomes and support operational efficiencies without losing the human element in the process.
What is AI, Anyway?
AI describes systems that mimic the process of human intelligence. These programs demonstrate a software or algorithm’s ability to plan, learn, and solve problems.
The role of AI is growing in recruitment, talent acquisition, and forward-thinking contemporary HR professionals are beginning to understand the role of technology in making their jobs easier. For example, intelligent algorithms are already being used to attract, engage, assess, track, categorise and rank talent.
Part of this is due to a shift in opinion about these programs. HR, recruiters and small business have been slow to adopt AI as a solution to benefit recruitment because it was supposed that AI would take away jobs from hiring managers and remove the human element in talent acquisition.
Now, it’s understood that AI doesn’t remove humans from the process, it enhances them. AI supports the hiring process transforming the function in terms of efficiency, time, cost, quality of hire, candidate experience, and diversity and inclusion. Supercharging HR, recruiters and hiring managers with the freedom to do their jobs by building lasting relationships with potential new hires.
8 Ways that AI is Transforming Recruitment
Here are eight ways in which HR recruiters and SME’s can continue to embrace AI’s role in enhancing their ability to hire the best talent for a given job opportunity:
1. Shortlisting
Automated programs are already largely being used to help screen candidates in the early stages of the application review process. Recruiters don’t need to be on the frontline of this process. The question on everyone’s mind is when can AI be trusted to empower your process and not drive it. The question we need to ask is a simple one, does the system enable your unique process or does it drive it? In other words, does the algorithm dictate the outcome or do you!
2. Interview Scheduling
Anyone who has sat on either side of the table at a job interview understands the frustration that comes with playing email/phone tag to establish a time for an interview. This drags out the process of recruiting without adding any value, which costs money.
With a “digital assistant” in the form of an AI agent coordinating with applicants 24/7, interviews can be scheduled based on candidate and recruiter preferences this can include room openings, recruiters’ schedules and other important unique information.
3. Reducing Recruitment Bias
Many companies value diversity in the hiring process however shortlisting and even the language used in a job listing can be inherently biased. AI can eliminate unconscious bias ensuring fair and equitable processes, increasing diversity and inclusion and supercharging your team’s productivity.
4. Automating Soft and Hard Skill Assessments
Skill assessments and job fit tests are being used more and more to assess a candidate’s hard and soft skills. Traditionally this is expensive and has been the domain of large enterprise. Research suggests that where recruiters are the ones analysing the results at the scale it is more difficult to normalise and compare the results of candidates against inherent requirements of the role. A computer program is able to better align these assessments to quantify whether or not a candidate possesses the skills to do the job.
5. Cultural and Team Alignment
Finding a fit for a company culture among a pool of candidates can be a job that’s best done with a combination of human and technological input. One way that AI can do this is to use algorithms that utilize insights about the team or group being hired. When algorithms are programmed to consider the culture of the team, AI can be highly effective in identifying attributes that are predictive and useful in producing better quality hires and team fit while ensuring diversity and inclusion.
6. Improved Candidate Experience
AI doesn’t just benefit recruiters and HR professionals during the hiring process. It can make candidates feel their needs are being better met during the application process, which reflects positively on your company as a whole.
7. Improving Quality of Hire
A comprehensive AI approach can greatly boost talent acquisition. By removing bias, handling skill assessments and job fit tests, AI can tease out qualified candidates without the hazard of human error. By the time you make a decision about who the new hire will be, you will have had layers of insights to consider, both from your human hiring team and the AI that have helped along the way.
8. Improving Time to Recruit
One of the largest benefits that using AI during recruitment presents is also one of the simplest – if you’re entrusting technology with responsibilities like scheduling interviews, screening candidates and performing assessments, you are free to focus on the things that AI can’t do, such as building relationships with candidates and learning about how they can be an asset to the team.
One of the key takeaways of adopting AI in the recruitment process is showing that there is room in the industry for humans and technology to combine in order to produce the best results when it comes to talent acquisition.
Anthony Goodwin is a founder, entrepreneur, consultant, data scientist and coach with 25+ years of experience in business management, recruitment, and human resources. He holds a bachelor of business management – human resource management and postgraduate qualifications in data science.
