Artificial Intelligence in recruiting is a hot topic. Experts are clamoring to be the first to comment on the possibilities, raise concerns of the issues and even downplay features. Through all the controversy and excitement, we can’t help but ask in what ways AI Recruiting technology is truly meeting the needs of talent acquisition. What AI technologies influence recruiting and hiring? What are the capabilities and opportunities for the candidate experience, screening and administrative duties? This pro and cons list will delve into AI via the various technologies that exist and give an accurate and honest idea of how those technologies both help and hurt talent acquisition.
AI Tech #1: Intelligent Automation
Intelligent automation uses collected data to analyze new information and make decisions. All of this is done autonomously, saving administrative investments. In fact, the program sends information about the applicant and application to the talent acquisition user in a more digestible way, further decreasing the administrative burden and ensuring they’re given proper consideration. The process is instantaneous, beginning as soon as a candidate applies and providing a response to the applicant immediately. This is a crucial element as 65% of job seekers say they never or rarely receive application status notices and 80% would not reapply because of the poor communication.
Pros of Intelligent Automation:
- Saves recruiter time
- Increases internal hiring organization
- Immediate communication avenue for candidates
“The goal of AI and automation in recruitment is to streamline process with the end goal to reduce cost of hire while improving candidate experience.” -Ryan Leary (@ryanleary), RecruitingDaily
Cons of Intelligent Automation:
- Automated response system lacks a personalized feeling
- Lacks human emotion
AI Tech #2: Assistants
AI recruiting assistants automate communications with candidates, lowering the administrative time needed to interact with potential hires. Depending on their features, these assistants might answer policy questions, schedule meetings or interviews and even screen resumes. However, there are negative effects of using AI recruiting assistants.
Pros of AI Recruiting Assistants:
- Lowered administrative time investments
- Candidates have 24/7 access to employer
- Decreased risk of ignoring interested applicants
Cons of AI Recruiting Assistants:
- Conversational limitations (ex. these are automated systems)
- May miss human language nuances
- Cannot be improved with experience (ex. Machine intelligence does not equate to human learning)
- Lack human emotion
“Since algorithmic decision making adjusts to the things that make a culture different, they tend to amplify the biases of the culture. Most of these machine learning tools are black boxes. The only way to see the bias is by examining the output. In other words, these new tools may create liability before it can be discovered and managed.” -John Sumser (@JohnSumser), HRExaminer
In addition, many HR and Talent Acquisition leaders have deemed assistants to be a less effective tool as mentioned in a recent report from Talent Tech Labs. This is due to being a relatively new entry in the recruitment market, leaving them vulnerable to various conversational issues and compliance risks. For now, this recruiting technology simply lacks the ability to effectively replace steps in the recruiting process, especially those performed by humans.
AI Tech #3: Intelligent Recruiting Software
As it sounds, AI screening tools and software automate the resume reviewing process. These tools use machine learning to understand the company’s hiring and employment data. All of this historical data is entered into predictive algorithms allowing the recruiters to better understand the applicant and make more intelligent hiring decisions. All this knowledge will help the software decide what makes a good hire for the organization and can quickly assess, prioritize, score and shortlist the best candidates out of an applicant pool. Meanwhile the data can also provide suggestions for other potential job openings within the company to qualified candidates who didn’t get the position for which they initially applied.
Pros of Intelligent Recruiting Software:
- Immediate or near immediate identification of top candidates
- Identifies candidates from sources that might otherwise be overlooked
- Gains accuracy with more data
- Integrates with applicant tracking systems
- Provides data-backed decisions
- Significant time savings
- Avoids hiring bias/compliance risks
Cons of Intelligent Recruiting Software:
- Might miss resume details due to formatting
- Cannot screen for soft skills
- Potential to overlook cultural fit
- Lack human judgment capabilities
- If AI is not built in, there is a cost and complexity to integration with your ATS
AI Tech #4: Digitized Interviews
Interviewing via online tests and assessments has been a welcome process for many recruiting teams. However, candidate interviews that use AI take those assessments further. Interview AI uses techniques like video interviews to capture the intangible human qualities (facial features, word choice, voice inflection, etc.) to predict candidate fit. Even more, this technology can assess candidate’s ability to perform job duties by simulating customer/client interactions, measuring the applicant’s empathy and attention to detail.
Pros of AI Interviewing:
- Assess candidates for potential performance
- Provides data-backed decisions
- Avoids hiring bias and promotes diversity
- Lowered administrative time investments
- Can evaluate candidate based on body language
Cons of AI Interviewing:
- Cannot completely account for varied personalities and habits
- Potential to overlook cultural fit
- Lack human judgment capabilities and emotion
- Can leave a less personal/friendly feel
- Could misread candidate intentions
- Possible technical failure could damper candidate experience
Drawing Conclusions: AI For Recruiting
“It’s a misconception that artificial intelligence (AI), or the use of machines, will take away work from humans. By contrast, AI is going to complement HR’s data-driven and analytics-based tasks.” -Edward Page, ThisWay Global (@ThisWayGlobal)
Artificial Intelligence presents recruiting and hiring teams massive amounts of opportunities. Automating mundane talent acquisition processes and eliminating repetitive motions is possible with the advancing technologies. However, with each possibility, there may be limitations to take into account. As our dissection above shows, human interactions are still key to making smart decisions and personal connections in recruiting. Though interactions are quicker, it is the human recruiter who can best identify a good hire.
Only the power of people can…
Strategize the Correct Candidate Experience: AI can interact and answer questions, but it cannot bring the warmth and individualized candidate experience.
Build Relationships with Candidates: AI will ensure candidates aren’t left in the dark after each step, but technology cannot engage with candidates in a human and personal way.
See Beyond the Resume: AI can accelerate reading and assessing a resume, but only a human can understand the person behind the keywords and semantics.
“Effective execution of people strategies requires that you have an intimate and precise understanding of your existing talent supply, its capabilities, and the future demand for each talent segment. That intimacy comes from the use of predictive analytics — in other words, forecasting turnover and knowing key sources of high-quality talent, and predicting revenue by talent segment or key job role.” -Laci Loew (@LaciLoew), Brandon Hall Group
If AI still seems a little overwhelming, download our white paper, Big Data: The Ultimate Game Changer for Recruiters. It will provide insight on how recruiters can save time and more accurately identify top talent before the competition.