Is the jobseeker ready for technology in the hiring process? Innovative recruiting technologies have gained fast technological advancement in recent years, with recruiting automation playing a pivotal role. Their ability to complete daily administrative duties fast and efficiently have made them a definite desirable for hiring teams dealing with high-volume recruitment.
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While technology advances, it’s important not to forget more traditional approaches to hiring. Manual methods have long been depended on to complete daily recruitment tasks. So-called traditional techniques are part of the day-to-day life of a recruiter and an HR professional.
While the landscape of automation is vast, we will be looking closely at the pros and cons of both recruitment technology and a manual approach.
Why Manual Works
Hiring scale. The magnitude of the hiring campaign affects the demand for manual or automated assistance. For example, hiring on a small scale for a small to midsize company would be inefficient and expensive to outsource automated solutions.
Human intelligence. There are aspects of recruiting technology that are difficult to effectively replicate. Human decision-making is vital, and skilled hiring teams have the cognitive ability to make informed decisions, which are derived from key human attributes such as integrity, communication, and relationship-building skills.
Candidates want to keep it human. The human element in recruitment will remain prominent in the candidate’s hiring journey. According to the ASA Workforce Monitor, three in four jobseekers prefer human interaction during their job search. This is because candidates trust that a recruiter will understand their needs and take genuine care of their personal career journey.
Limitations
A manual approach to recruiting has always been favored in the past, but what are its limitations?
- Time restraints: During résumé screening, a recruiter will skim one application at a time for an average of 7.4 seconds. As a result, a comprehensive review is compromised.
- Unconscious bias: A recruiter will build thoughts and opinions on each résumé he or she reads. During this process, the recruiter becomes prone to unconscious biases affecting his or her reason why. A candidate’s name, perceived age, nationality, and gender can subconsciously affect a hiring decision.
- Lack of consistency: It is difficult to ensure each applicant is handled in the exact same way. As humans, we can be affected by different variables that could affect screening consistency, our opinion, motives, and even emotions, which all play a part.
Automation: Why It Works
Recruiting automation is the automatic technology process by which recruitment tasks are carried out for improved efficiency and productivity. Automated hiring technology excels in areas of recruitment where there are high loads of administrative duties, such as screening and sourcing applicants.
Reduce time to fill. Automation speeds up the hiring process. Some services take less than a second to fully review a job application. It can then match candidates’ skills and experience against the open vacancy to determine their role fit. Considering the average corporate vacancy receives 250 job applications, it is crucial these résumés are screened fast, fairly, and consistently with automation.
Cost to hire. On average, it costs an organization $4,129 to hire an employee, and it takes around 42 days to fill a position. External hiring teams, internal HR teams, job board fees, a careers page, events, and social media all contribute to initial costs.
For example, recruiters use their internal candidate database to source talent:
- Manually: They search using keywords and read individual résumés to find any potential matching applicants.
- Automatically: They automatically search the candidate database and match past applicants against a new job vacancy to save external sourcing costs, create re-engagement opportunities, and make use of existing talent from candidates who have already invested in the employer brand, as they have applied in the past.
Fair consideration. Job application automation uses algorithms to review résumés, formulated from set keywords such as experience, skills, and potential job titles. Because each applicant is screened from the same criteria, it creates much fairer and consistent results. Recruiting technology disregards a candidate’s personal qualities or perceived characteristics and focuses solely on his or her potential job capability.
The Limitations or Risks
Over-automation: This leads to a robotic tone and an overall less personal feel to the recruitment process. To avoid this, it is important to look for areas of improvement and areas that would most benefit from technological assistance. Remember to always ensure communication is kept at the heart of a recruiter’s role.
Is the jobseeker ready? Those looking for their next role may not realize their application will not be read by human eyes until later on in the hiring process.
Disregarding recruiters’ expertise and experience: An experienced recruiter and HR professional have incredibly valuable expertise. They know what constitutes a bad hire, and their judgment from lengthy experience should not be disregarded.
Finding a Balance
Hiring automation is most effective when used to enhance, not replace. Ensure that when implementing this type of technology, there is an equal balance between automation and human input.
Learn to take key strengths from both sides. For example, automation excels in screening and sourcing candidates, whereas recruiters and HR teams excel in assessment, communication, and making final hiring decisions.
| Rosie Quinn is a Marketing Manager for CiiVSOFT. CiiVSOFT develops automation technology to improve recruitment for hiring teams and candidates. |