The Increasing Role of AI in Talent Acquisition

We’re in the 4th industrial revolution, and we’re familiar with how AI has taken over every industry. Whether it’s Alexa, reminding you to order your ear pods, or the latest rave that is ChatGpt, an AI so smart, that’s taken the digital industry by storm, or just a simple chat bot conversation to change your reservations, AI has become a big part of our daily lives. 

Beyond the convenience of consumer AI, the largest industries in the world have been using Artificial intelligence to their maximum ability. 

The recruitment industry has been integrating AI into their systems to create faster, fairer hiring processes boosting business productivity. 

Talent acquisition has been a hot topic since the onset of the Great resignation. The talent acquisition process is a tedious, time-consuming process. In today’s tight labour market, recruiters have to adopt AI to support the efforts of sourcing and retaining skilled workers. 

What is the single most challenging task for recruiters in talent acquisition?

Sorting through the million applications and selecting the right candidates. About 52% of recruitment and talent specialists admit that they struggle with the screening process. AI’s help in automating the screening process and other repetitive tasks in hiring makes talent acquisition more effective and efficient.

Challenges Faced in Talent Acquisition

Sure, AI can automate most of the time-consuming recruitment processes. But AI powered recruitment has not yet fully evolved. Until the time it does, there are a few challenges that you need to deal with.

• High recruitment costs – an immense amount of data is required for training and engagement
• The need to be able to learn from human bias in present recruiting techniques
• Fear of adapting new technology 
• The loss of human touch in recruitment

Opportunities Recruiters have From AI

Integrating AI solutions in the recruitment process helps you shortlist candidates, automate manual tasks, streamline the recruitment workflow and take care of any other repetitive high-volume tasks. AI applications help generate insights about the talent market, build exclusive screening tests and identify skills from candidates you seek.

AI presents recruiters many benefits and opportunities. Some of them are-

• Improved quality of hires through standardized job matching 
• An unbiased recruitment process approach
• Allowing recruiters to focus on the best candidates by taking away the load from repetitive tasks
• Access to a larger, diverse talent pool 

How is AI Elevating Talent Acquisition?

If you haven’t already implemented AI recruiting solutions, it’s time to get on board. Automation can save companies precious time and millions of dollars every year for every employee hire they make or even for an existing employee. AI-assisted recruiting helps recruiters pursue a candidate-first strategy. Implementing AI facilitates recruiters to screen big volumes of candidate profiles and connect with prospects more frequently. 

Ways in which AI enhances talent acquisition efforts-

1. Sourcing quality candidates in shorter time frames

Identifying and attracting talent for an open position is a struggle well-known in the recruiting industry. With the guidance of AI, it is possible to screen several potential candidate profiles- at scale- giving you access to a more diverse talent pool for your open job position in relatively shorter time frames when compared to non-AI methods. Using these workflows helps you hire candidates faster, with precision and speed. 

2. Creating a better hiring experience for candidates

Integrating AI in the newest hiring platforms can enhance employee experience by- 

1. Experiencing job simulations and previews through pre-hire assessments to get an inside look at the role offered, allowing them to express job-relevant competencies.
2. AI for talent acquisition can evaluate the structured and unstructured data collected during the hiring process, facilitating recruiters to allow candidates to present themselves in a better light, through their own words.
3. Assistance with interview scheduling using a virtual assistant 

3. Enhanced Screening Capabilities

Do not forget that AI tools are always learning, and they can boost your screening by more than just relying on the candidates that have applied. They review past applications, creating a foolproof solution to select the most suitable candidates leaving no possible avenue undiscovered. Did you know you can train AI models to remove unconscious bias from the recruiting process, to ensure complete inclusion and diversity in your workforce solutions? 

4. Assistance in the interview process

Before calling the candidates for a face-to-face interview, AI in talent acquisition can help assess the candidate’s technical skills required for the role by offering job simulations, going through personality testing and conducting virtual interviews to gauge their potential for the role. 

5. Higher importance for Diversity, equality and inclusions (DEI) initiatives

AI powered talent acquisition can eliminate bias in the hiring process by identifying it in real-time, assessing job descriptions and resumes, identifying interview scoring patterns, helping in informed decision-making, and bringing visibility to things that need a change, helping organizations meet their DEI goals.

6. Smooth onboarding experience

AI can take care of repetitive tasks in the onboarding process, like conducting background checks, assembling the paperwork and getting employees to complete the documentation before they are fully onboard in the organization. While there is still a certain amount of monitoring HR needs to do during the onboarding process, AI ensures time-consuming tasks are off the plate. 

For recruitment companies on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to rapidly changing technological advances and the business landscape. Employers expect faster and more accurate responses, therefore, to deliver their expectations, it is crucial to have a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Equipping firms with AI that help them scale their business, and provides them with actionable insights in real-time and in-depth visibility leading to greater productivity, will be key to transforming their business.

Future of AI in Talent Acquisition

Machines can process information faster and more accurately than humans, for obvious reasons, but the ability to connect with others and plan strategically will, for the time being, remain primarily human.

An ideal, harmonious relationship cannot form naturally between humans and AI. Employers need to formulate a well-thought-out strategy and rebuild their recruiting process. From a recruiter’s perspective, you need to have the ability to analyze which of the skills are more valued and needed, even if AI is the norm, and that will open the way for you to focus more on what humans truly own including relationship building, employer branding, recruitment marketing, candidate experience, and proactive sourcing during events or social media.

As stated in an article published in Harvard Business Review, the future might not see people competing with machines for jobs but rather, free them to unleash their imagination, creativity and strategic abilities.  Artificial intelligence can be one of the greatest assets for discovering the right candidate and managing a relationship with them. AI can help recruit the finest of all talents for a particular position, along with upholding the image of an organization in the best possible way.