01 Apr Continuously Adapting: AI’s Growing Impact on the Recruiting Industry
Globally, CEOs are setting their sights on two business priorities – technology and talent. We’ve written plenty of great posts about talent, so in this piece we’re going to take a closer look at technology and it’s growing influence in the talent acquisition and recruiting workspace.
There’s no denying the fact that AI and intelligent tech are rapidly changing the market and the way organizations conduct business across industries. We’re fortunate – we’re here just in time to witness the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and as intimidating as that may be, the technological leaps that are being made in recruiting and talent acquisition are boundless.
AI and new tech is the elephant in the workplace, and understandably so. While your concerns are warranted, rest assured – AI isn’t gunning for your job, it’s just aiming to make it a little bit easier.
AI’s Application in Recruiting
IBM and HR.com’s report “How Organizations Identify and Hire Great Talent” revealed that nearly 50% of HR leaders predicted that AI would be important to talent acquisition in their organizations within the next five years. The outcomes the leaders would most like to achieve using AI are as follows:
It may seem alien to let a program handle these aspects of recruiting, but Athena Karp, the CEO of AI HR company HiredScore, doesn’t believe so. “Some employers attract more than a million resumes a year and handle 5 million to 10 million hiring decision points, and yet we’re still leveraging human instinct and manual processes to make hires.”
Maybe Karp has a point – should we rely on our intuition to make great hires when the tech is equally, if not more capable of making the right decision? She then adds that AI won’t replace recruiters or HR managers, but rather augment their capabilities so they can hire the best people and spend more time on candidate care and other strategic aspects of their jobs that require human attention.
Today, workforce analytics are being applied in HR and recruiting through the use of assessments that measure candidate and employee engagement, skill sets, and personalities. 23% of HR leaders use those results to develop new leaders and identify high potential candidates and employees, 25% of leaders use it for sourcing talent, and another 10% use it to assess quality of hire.
For better or worse, the intuitive nature of HR and recruiting is slowly being phased out. An overwhelming 70% of organizations are expecting to increase their investments into workforce analytics in the next few years; at the moment, it appears that big data is here to stay.
Candidate Experience Implications
As a talent acquisition specialist or recruiter, consider how much time you’ve spent reaching out to interested candidates and hiring managers without getting through. People are busy and schedules have a tendency to conflict, which is why more than 40% of U.S. companies now use chatbots to engage with candidates during recruiting. These bots are able to source and acquire talent, pre-screen candidates, and even schedule interviews. Better yet, they’re available 24/7, freeing you to focus on the uniquely-human aspects of your job, like coaching, developing, and building relationships with candidates and hiring managers.
The importance of getting the candidate experience right as a recruiter can’t be understated – nearly 4 out of 5 candidates say that their experience is indicative of how a company treats its people. The time recruiters will gain from using chatbot technology will free them up considerably, allowing them to spend more time working with individual candidates and clients.
Ways to Go
If this article has left you fearing the unknowns of the future, don’t worry too much – while AI is here to stay, the issues with its integration in the average workplace are still abundant. According to Ideal.com,
- 30% of employers state their recruiting technologies meet their needs to a low extent or not at all
- 24% feel saddled with outdated recruiting technologies
- 28% lack an assessment tool to identify the best candidates
Every industrial revolution has shaken up the workforce, and this one is no different. We’re going to see a huge spike in demand for jobs that rely heavily on emerging technologies, but also for jobs that rely on irreplaceable human skills – creativity, negotiation, critical thinking, and social influence to name a few.
If you’re still in need of consolation, take it from Raghav Singh, an experienced recruiter and HRIT leader who’s worked for several Fortune 500 companies throughout his career.
“There was a time when recruiting meant placing an ad in the newspaper and waiting for resumes to show up in the mail. The main tools of an executive recruiter in the 1970s were a Dun and Bradstreet directory of companies and the phone book, and the job required hours of “smiling and dialing” every day. The profession has evolved a lot since then. Recruiters are in no danger of extinction so long as they continue to adapt.”
What are your thoughts on the pros and cons AI’s implementation and utility in the workplace? Do you see recruiting and talent acquisition becoming more or less effective as data begins making the big decisions? Leave a comment on our LinkedIn or Facebook pages letting us know what you think!
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