Every other day, there is an article about artificial intelligence (AI) and recruiting that’s taking the Internet by storm, but what’s the excitement about? Is bringing AI into the recruitment industry the next big thing?
Machine learning is about predicting the future based on the past. Through years of research and data collection, AI has emerged from the ashes of big data and predictive analysis.
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A recruiter serves as the middle person between the hiring manager and the candidate. AI helps to ease the hiring pipeline and allow a company to get more done, allowing you to spend time on more important activities, like building relationships with a high-profile candidate and adding value to recruiting on a strategic level.
AI is transforming hiring by assisting HR professionals in various recruitment processes, from identifying talent to mapping behavioral assessments of candidates. In a survey conducted in 2018, 36% of candidates feel the traditional interviewing methods are too time-consuming.
Hiring using AI not only saves money and time but also leverages them so you can select people who best suit your business. AI can predict the future needs of the candidates. Then, the recruiter can influence them with attractive plans and offers.
Let me start by explaining the hiring pipeline and the impact of AI in each step.
1. Job Publishing
A standard way to approach candidates is through staffing and recruiting agencies to help them reach their dream job. The quality of your applicants depends on the initial candidates you attract with your job posting. Because this is the first phase of recruiting, AI helps you to formulate clear, detailed job descriptions that explain what exactly you are looking for in candidates.
AI will analyze the data about a company, like its corporate culture, hiring trends, and current employees, in order to determine which company can best match this particular candidate and why.
The right message to the right person at the right time is what matters. So, the job should be posted in the right place for the best exposure. AI suggests the right sources for a particular job based on complex algorithms analyzing the hit ratios and market trends to get your job exactly where the right candidates are, thereby maximizing your reach.
2. Talent Acquisition
Fifty-two percent of talent acquisition leaders say the hardest part of recruitment is screening candidates from a large applicant pool. When your job description accurately represents who you’re looking to hire, AI can identify the right hire who fits your needs.
Recruiters don’t actually recruit people. Their primary job is processing applicants. Even though AI strikes fear in automating the recruiting process, its algorithms have proven beneficial for the legal and medical fields—according to 72.8% of recruiters, who say they are struggling to find relevant candidates. AI can bridge this gap between recruiters/staffing agencies and candidates.
3. Candidate Screening
According to a survey by CareerBuilder, in 2006, just 5% of the recruiters were using social media screening. By 2016, it was up to 60%, and in 2017, it was 70%. This reveals the impact of social media. A recruiter spends almost 3.5 hours per day on résumé reviews and candidate screening. This time can be put to better use.
AI acts as a personal assistant to recruiters by automating many of the mundane tasks that eat up the day. One of the best ways to utilize AI is through chatbots and automated message services.
By assigning rules and triggers through chatbots and automated message services, you can automate conversations related to specific hiring or job queries and receive instant answers.
AI uses machine learning, meaning that the more data it has at its disposal, the better it becomes at predicting successful outcomes. Thus, less time will be spent on sourcing and screening, and there will be more time for building candidate relationships, developing culture, and conducting other value-added HR activities.
4. Machines as Matchmakers
In order to make the right hire, every recruiter needs his or her recruitment process to function as a well-oiled machine. With greater access to relevant data than ever before, recruiters are in a better position to match jobseekers with better job openings. AI improves the odds of creating a great match from the beginning of the recruiting process by applying predictive algorithms to make predictions that select only the most relevant jobs before showing them to jobseekers.
To get the recruitment process right, AI algorithms are incorporated in the company’s recruitment tool. Recruiting processes, like finding candidates, résumé parsing, sending follow-up e-mails, arranging interviews, evaluating assessments, and getting feedback, are all automated.
5. Hire and Keep
Keeping track of your internal employees is just as important as getting new ones in the organization. AI remains relevant even after the actual hiring process. Pay attention to details like why employees leave companies or switch departments.
The employee experience is a great factor influencing potential candidates. According to recruiters, 48% say that better company culture attracts better prospective hires. Algorithms can be the biggest help in keeping your employees happy.
In part two of this article, I’ll explain why recruiters should embrace AI.
| Vijay Sundaram is Chief Strategy Officer at Zoho where he is also responsible for the partner and channel program. He is a prior entrepreneur and company founder, in cloud supply chain software, mobile advertising technology, and renewable energy. He has led products, sales, business development, and finance teams within these organizations. Vijay enjoys working with senior executives, brainstorming, and troubleshooting complex business issues that skip across functional and organizational borders. Vijay has an undergraduate degree in engineering from IIT Madras, and graduate degrees in computer science and in business from NYU and the Wharton School of Business, respectively. |