Automation is going to take our jobs, according to a lot of articles about the talent marketplace and the future of work. A lot of people are making the claim that artificial intelligence (AI) is the end of jobs. It sounds scary, but the good news is: They’re wrong. While AI will eliminate some work, it will primarily free people up to do different things, fine-tune their skills, and allow businesses to lower prices on products and services because automation saves time AND money.
What Artificial Intelligence Is Not In Recruitment and Hiring
Unfortunately, there are also a lot of things that AI cannot do in recruitment and hiring. It simply isn’t the silver bullet that is going to solve a company’s talent attraction, engagement, or retention problems. While it can support and enhance a company’s recruiting efforts, it is not going to replace recruiters, hiring managers, or sourcers.
Because there is so much confusion, we want to share a list of what AI is not:
AI in Recruiting Is NOT:
Intelligence
And it’s not “artificial consciousness.” Machine learning is also not separate from AI. It is considered one of the waves of artificial intelligence.
The silver bullet in recruiting or HR
Yes, it will help HR and recruiters as knowledge workers get out of the weeds and focus on more strategic activities, but just like job boards in the early 2000’s, it will not eliminate our jobs only grow them in importance.
Part of every single HR and recruiting technology
Educate yourself on artificial intelligence basics and ask questions about the intelligence behind an HR technology company’s proposed AI.
What is Artificial Intelligence in Simple Terms
At a basic level, artificial intelligence is about developing computer systems and algorithms that are able to perform tasks normally associated with human intelligence like visual perception. Surprisingly, artificial intelligence has been around for over 50 years. In the 1970’s and 80’s, there was a wave of innovation in natural language processing. AI again experienced innovation in the area of expert systems in the 1980’s and early 90’s followed by machine learning through the 1990’s. In the 2000’s, computer technology and resources became more affordable and could house larger amounts of data, resulting in AI further evolving with a focus on deep learning.
In simple terms, artificial intelligence is focused on building human-like intelligence focused on automation.
What AI Is for Recruitment and Hiring
In the recruiting lifecycle, automation has advanced to the point where it can help streamline just about every facet of recruiting, screening and selection. Remember, this technology is focused on “human-like” automation.
Chat Bots
On career sites and intuitive email response technologies that help answer candidate questions, schedule interviews, and serve up resources focusing on the candidate experience. Want to see AI in action? Visit the chat on Amazon and talk to an artificial intelligence bot about a return BEFORE you talk to a live Amazon representative who will process your refund or offer you and help troubleshoot solutions for you.
Smart Search and Match
Artificial intelligence exists that will help source talent quickly presenting your recruiting teams new candidate prospects to review and/or refresh candidate data and information to ensure that you have the most complete picture of your candidates.
Intuitive Qualifying
Whether it’s using video interviewing technology to determine if candidates are being dishonest or using a job seeker’s Instagram account to determine their personality profile, these technologies can help you better determine if a candidate is a fit for your organization or a flight risk.
Candidate Targeting
Using your position requirements and data on the qualifications that made for a great hire, your recruitment marketing technology partners like Talroo can serve job ads that reach highly targeted and qualified candidates that are perfect fit for your company and the position. Candidate targeting can also be in the form of offering a more inclusive experience when it comes to your own company job postings and/or recruiting marketing. AI technology can help eliminate your unconscious bias.
Better Recruitment Forecasting and Recommendations
File this under recruitment metrics and analytics but AI can give you more robust forecasting, anticipated turnover and candidate ratios based on larger trends and historical data that takes into account location specific data as well as larger industry or market trends.
Smart Verification and/or Onboarding
Again, automation can help eliminate typical bottlenecks in the hiring process. Artificial intelligence can help with those not just pre-offer but post-offer bottlenecks focused on helping verify your candidate’s background, work experience, and skills seamlessly with AI-based skills assessment and also new hire and pre-employment onboarding.
It’s important to arm yourself with knowledge as AI is poised to push the recruiting industry forward, moving faster than ever. As the market tightens, those with the knowledge and experience in leveraging artificial intelligence, can scale their recruiting efforts more quickly than ever before.
In this competitive talent landscape, knowledge is power. That starts with arming yourself with information on how artificial intelligence can elevate your recruiting efforts giving you an edge against your competition in the war for talent.
