Is technology coming to take your job? Of course not. In fact, artificial intelligence (AI) is here to take repetitive tasks off recruiters’ plates, leaving more time for the “human” aspects of the job.
With every wave of innovation, there’s talk that technology will take humans’ jobs. But each advancement has shown that technology actually creates more jobs. So let’s rethink the narrative and examine the many ways AI can work with recruiters to help them be better at their jobs.
End Busywork
AI streamlines work processes so that HR managers can concentrate on people skills, including relationship-building, interviewing, and making sure the final placement is right. It catalogues information, classifying it into more accessible chunks that today’s recruiters can act on.
AI speeds up the recruiting process, cutting the time between a job posting and the end result of connecting the right person with the right team. In the last several months, AI has especially been automating the following tasks for the team at Rocket:
Vetting prospects. AI functions as the first rung for screening applicants, trimming the work of selecting candidates to interview. An AI chatbot, for example, can ask online applicants basic questions: “How many years of product management experience do you have?” “Which position are you applying for?” “Do you have work authorization?” “Are you available for travel?”
The first and largest set of AI chatbots can also collect and organize résumés, aggregating contact details, educational backgrounds, locations, etc., and sorting through the initial massive influx of CVs for human recruiters.
Drafting e-mails. Once the algorithm has screened applicants and a recruiter has reviewed the choices, AI can reliably draft an e-mail to the candidates to determine their interest. For example, for a lot of recruiters, Gmail is already completing sentences: “How about a 9 a.m. chat on August 8?” At Rocket, we go even further and draft full e-mails for recruiters to review and send.
Reading e-mails. AI can also read the responses of potential candidates—Did they confirm their availability? Are they interested? What questions do they have?—and construct a response to keep the process moving forward or eliminate candidates from the pool. With these actions, AI again reduces the size of an applicant pool, ensuring the right person rises to the surface.
Managing calendars. There are many ways recruiters can miss out on candidates. Some may decide to stick it out at their own company, or maybe they want a shorter commute or a permanent work-from-home position. All these are fair reasons a job offer may not be accepted; a missed appointment, though, isn’t.
AI can automatically look at a recruiter’s calendar to determine availability—if you have a block of time for a vetting call, an interview, or a salary negotiation. And it can send reminders before an interview, as well as materials needed for prep.
Updating the applicant tracking system (ATS). Every recruiter needs to keep the candidate record updated in the ATS. Once candidates make their way into the system, an AI-powered ATS will use a comprehensive algorithm to further parse résumés, creating subcategories of qualified candidates.
The result is that recruiters can be more granular about the needs of a specific job, saving the time and resources of all involved in the search, including the candidate. This is an ideal place for technology to eliminate tedious but useful work.
With AI, recruiters’ high-volume and repetitive administrative work is done already, increasing their company’s long-term productivity. These tasks illustrate AI’s reality and possibility, and they are just the tip of the iceberg.
Abhinav Agrawal is the Cofounder and CEO of Rocket, an AI-enabled recruiting agency backed by NEA and VentureCity that uses talented recruiters paired with AI to solve hiring challenges. It is also the company behind Hireflow, a free AI sourcing and outbound recruiting platform used by thousands of recruiters.
Previously, Agrawal was VP at SurveyMonkey, the Cofounder and CEO at Renzu (acquired by SurveyMonkey), EIR at Social Capital, VP of Product at Zynga, PM at Amazon EC2, and the Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company.
Abhinav has an MBA from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar) and a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton (summa cum laude). Connect with him on LinkedIn.