AI For Recruiting

A Simple Guide for HR Recruiting

INTRODUCTION

Simple AI for recruiting is an emerging category of HR technology designed to reduce — or even remove — low-level sourcing activities like manually screening resumes.

Screening resumes efficiently and time-effectively still remains the biggest challenge in talent acquisition: 52% of talent acquisition leaders say the hardest part of recruitment is identifying the right candidates from a large applicant pool.

According to a survey of talent acquisition leaders, 56% say their hiring volume will increase this year, but 66% of recruiting teams will either stay the same size or contract.

This means that recruiters are being tasked to do more with less.

52% of Talent Acquisition leaders say the hardest part of recruitment is screening candidates from a large applicant pool.

In today’s market, finding top talent will depend on a recruiter’s ability to intelligently automate their workflow.

SECTION 1: SO WHAT IS AI FOR RECRUITING?

AI for recruiting is the application of artificial intelligence such as learning or problem-solving exhibited by machines to the recruitment function.

AI for recruiting is designed to automate some part of the recruiting workflow, especially repetitive, high-volume tasks. For example, software that applies machine learning to resumes to auto-screen candidates or software that conducts sentiment analysis on job descriptions to identify potentially biased language.

“Any area of recruiting where distinct inputs and outputs occur – like screening, sourcing and assessments – will largely become automated.” – Katrina Kibben, Randstad Sourceright

SECTION 2: THE BENEFITS OF AI FOR RECRUITING

1.   Saving recruiters’ time by automating high-volume tasks

Talent acquisition leaders report that their hiring volume will increase next year but their recruiting teams will remain the same size or even contract. This means recruiters will be expected to become more efficient by “doing more with less.”

Manually screening resumes is still the most time-consuming part of recruiting, especially when 75% to 88% of the resumes received for a role are unqualified. Screening resumes and shortlisting candidates to interview is estimated to take 23 hours of a recruiter’s time for a single hire.

75% to 88% of the resumes received for a role are unqualified

2.   Improving quality of hire through standardized job matching interface

Quality of hire used to be a bit of a recruiting KPI black box due to an inability to close the data loop (i.e., measure what happens to the candidates after they get hired). As HR data has become easier to collect, access, and analyze over the years, quality of hire has become recruiting’s top KPI.

The promise of AI for improving quality of hire lies in its ability to use data to standardize the matching between candidates’ experience, knowledge, and skills and the requirements of the job. This improvement in job matching is predicted to lead to happier, more productive employees who are less likely to turnover. Early results are extremely promising. Companies that have adopted AI for recruiting software have seen their performance increase by 20%, their revenue per employee improve by 4%, and their turnover decrease by 35%.

Companies that have adopted AI have..

1. +20% increase in performance
2. +4% increase in revenue per employee
3. -35% decrease in turnover

You enjoy…

1. Saving 23 hours per hire
2. No disruption to your regular workflow

Your organization enjoys…

1. 35% decrease in attrition
2. 20% increase in performance

“The positive part of this is that we can standardize our processes to better and more objectively assess a candidate’s ability and skills while removing the inherent biases found throughout the sourcing and selection process.” – Katrina Kibben, Randstad Sourceright

SECTION 3: THE CHALLENGES OF AI FOR RECRUITING

1. AI requires a lot of data

In general, AI requires a lot of data to learn how to accurately mimic human intelligence. AI for recruiting that uses machine learning needs a lot of data to learn how to screen resumes as accurately as a human recruiter, for example. This can mean several hundreds to several thousands of resumes for a specific role.

2.   AI can learn human biases

AI for recruiting promises to reduce unconscious bias by ignoring information such as a candidate’s age, gender, and race. However, AI is trained to find patterns in previous behavior. That means that any human bias that may already be in your recruiting process – even if it’s unconscious – can be learned by AI.

To avoid replicating human bias that may already exist, make sure any AI for recruiting software you use is aware of this issue and has taken steps to remove clear patterns of potential bias (e.g., only hiring graduates from a certain college).

3.   Skepticism of new technology

HR professionals are often bombarded with the latest and greatest trend that disappears just as quickly.

Understandably, recruiting and talent acquisition leaders can be skeptical of any technology that promises to make their jobs easier. They want to be certain that any AI for recruiting they use that will automate one of their work tasks is able to do as good of a job as they can.

SECTION 4: THE FUTURE OF AI FOR RECRUITING

AI for recruiting has several potential applications for automating high-volume, repetitive tasks such as resume screening and pre-qualifying candidates.

Intelligent screening software

Intelligent screening software automates resume screening by using AI (i.e. machine learning) on your existing resume database to learn which candidates moved on to become successful and unsuccessful employees based on their performance, tenure, and turnover rates.

The software learns about existing employees’ experience, skills, and other qualities and applies this knowledge to new applicants in order to automatically screen, rank, and shortlist the strongest candidates.

The software can also enrich candidates’ resumes by using public data sources about their prior employers as well as their public social media profiles.

Intelligent screening software that automates resume screening represents a massive opportunity for recruiters because it integrates with your existing ATS, which means it doesn’t disrupt your workflow, the candidate workflow, nor does it require IT support.

Recruiter chatbots

Recruiter chatbots are currently being tested to provide real-time interaction to candidates by asking questions based on the job requirements and providing feedback, updates, and next-step suggestions.

The promise of AI for recruiting in the form of chatbots is the ability to improve the candidate experience. 58% of job seekers say they have a negative impression of a company if didn’t hear back from the company after submitting an application, whereas 67% of job seekers have a positive impression of a company if they receive consistent updates throughout the application process.

58% of job seekers say they have a negative impression of a company if didn’t hear back from the company after submitting an application

67% of job seekers have a positive impression of a company if they receive consistent updates throughout the application process

SECTION 5: HOW AI FOR RECRUITING WILL CHANGE THE RECRUITER ROLE

Industry experts believe the future of AI for recruiting is Augmented Intelligence. Augmented Intelligence is the belief that you cannot fully replace human capabilities through technology.

Instead, Augmented Intelligence suggests we should look to create technology to enhance human aptitude and efficiency.

“Augmented Intelligence, rather than totally replacing people at work will be used to make them more effective. I think this may be the best use of AI for HR.” – Michael Haberman, HR Consultant

The ability to use augmented AI to automate repetitive, administrative tasks will be extremely valuable. There are 3 main ways this technology will change the role of the recruiter:

1. Recruiters will be able to conduct proactive strategic hiring rather than spend most of their time with reactive backfilling
2. Recruiters will have more time to spend with candidates in-person to help determine culture fit.
3. Recruiters will able to close the loop with hiring managers as AI allows them to use data to show recruiting KPIs including quality of hire.

“If recruiters and companies can learn to pair themselves with a specific AI, they can train it to understand a particular corporate mission and culture — so that recruiters feel like they leverage these chatbots and other similar technology as extensions of their teams, not as replacements for them.” – Dan Finnigan, Jobvite

SECTION 6: A SUMMARY OF AI FOR RECRUITING

1. AI for recruiting is the application of artificial intelligence to the recruitment function that is designed to automate some part of the recruiting workflow, especially repetitive high-volume tasks.
2. The main benefits of AI for recruiting include saving recruiters’ time by automating high-volume tasks and improving quality of hire through standardized job matching.
3. The major challenges of AI for recruiting include requiring a lot of data, the potential to learn human biases, and skepticism of new technology by HR professionals.
4. The future applications of AI for recruiting are intelligent screening software that automates resume screening, recruiter chatbots that engage candidates in real-time, and digitized interviews that help assess a candidate’s fit.
5. AI for recruiting will change the recruiter role through augmented intelligence which will allow recruiters to become more proactive in their hiring, help determine a candidate’s culture fit, and improve their relationships with hiring managers by using data to measure KPIs such as quality of hire.