AI Can Help With Recruiting. Here’s How.

What role does, and should, AI play in recruiting? A recent survey helps answer that question. To start, 95 percent of global recruiters who participated in the survey think that, in some way, AI can help them with the overall application processing. A whopping 79 percent think that in the future, AI will replace humans in the recruiting process.

On the candidates’ side, 70 percent of Millennials polled for the survey think that AI played a role in their recruitment process. Yet more than half (56 percent) think that humans should always make the final decision when it comes to hiring. 

HR professionals welcome the efficiency AI brings to the hiring process, and so do most job seekers — as long as there’s a human in the mix. So where exactly does AI stand in the current hiring ecosystem? Let’s look at how AI can help both employers and  job seekers. 

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How AI Helps Employers

Introducing AI into the hiring process can speed up the process and help companies gain an edge over their competitors. It can also identify candidates with a particular skill set, for instance a software engineer with blockchain experience. Here are other ways it can help.

AI Automates Manual Processes

AI can automate some of the manual processes traditionally associated with recruitment, such as filtering resumes and managing job postings. AI-driven tools can help companies quickly identify qualified candidates and reduce their reliance on human-resources departments for recruitment tasks.

AI Can Intelligently Screen Candidates

AI can analyze large data sets to uncover trends or characteristics to help identify the most suitable candidates for any given role. 

For example, a company might use natural language processing algorithms to analyze a candidate’s resume or social media profiles and gain insights into whether they have skills or experience that would make them an ideal fit for the job. Such insights are invaluable when making informed decisions about which applicants should advance in the interview process.

AI Performs Mundane Tasks

From lead generation to customer support, AI chatbots and similar tools have already been proven to be game changers for thousands of companies. Similarly, the recruitment process deals with time-intensive functions such as scanning hundreds of candidate profiles, skill matching, communicating with candidates and scheduling interviews. 

AI assistants are handling most of these issues, from helping recruiters with job postings to text-based communications to candidates and even engaging with them on different social platforms to analyze their relevance to the job openings. 

How AI Helps Job Seekers

It’s not just employers who hold all the AI cards. Job seekers, too, can benefit from the use of AI in the hiring process.

Better Candidate Connectivity

AI tools provide better connectivity between candidates and the recruiting process, enabling recruiters to contact a larger pool of applicants more efficiently and reducing the hiring time frame for job seekers.

Additionally, AI technology allows job seekers to connect with potential employers more effectively without manually searching through listings or waiting for an employer’s response.

Enhanced hiring experience 

AI is capable of automatically screening applicants based on their skill sets, eliminating manual reviewing and sorting processes that can be both time-consuming and expensive. AI also helps filter out irrelevant resumes by recognizing keywords and phrases in submitted applications. These qualities deliver a better hiring experience to job seekers.

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Challenges of Using AI in Recruitment

Companies that depend on AI technology to hire their ideal candidates do face challenges. To start, there’s algorithmic bias, or the use of algorithms designed with certain biases. This can lead to unintended discrimination in favor of certain groups. 

This is particularly troublesome when it comes to hiring, as there is a risk that AI-powered systems will favor candidates who merely look like they would fit well into the job role, rather than those who are actually best suited for the position. 

Another challenge: Candidates can create fake online profiles, alter cover letters and manipulate skill sets to beat the technology, tactics that may catch employers off guard. Although AI technology has made the hiring process more automated and less time-consuming, it also makes it easier for candidates to game the system.

AI in the hiring process can also be off-putting to candidates. Those who are uncomfortable with the use of  AI in hiring might withdraw their candidacies. The reason for this discomfort is that many people do not trust machines to make good judgments about their qualifications for a job. Several large companies have already reported flaws in their AI recruitment algorithms.

Finally, AI is only as good as its data sets. The rapid growth of machine learning-based AI has created a demand for large amounts of data to train the algorithms appropriately. Even with massive data access, training AI to filter resumes as precisely as a human recruiter is still tricky. 

This difficulty is compounded by the fact that humans are better at noticing subtle details in resumes. They can spot potential great hires even if a resume does not accurately reflect a candidate’s skills and experience.

In conclusion, AI technology can help with hiring. Automating processes and improving accuracy can save businesses time and money on recruitment efforts. Additionally, using AI to identify candidates who are the best fit for a role can help organizations increase their chances of finding top talent. AI has vast potential to improve efficiency and effectiveness in recruitment.