How Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Transforming the Recruiting Process

A recruiter's KPIs are usually measured by two metrics: time to hire and quality of hire. Even though acquiring excellent personnel to fill crucial jobs is nearly always identified as one of the top issues CEOs face, the recruitment department is always expected to decrease costs while delivering improved outcomes.

Recruiters and HR experts have long examined the effects of artificial intelligence and how it may make the talent acquisition process more efficient. Let's look closely at how AI is affecting recruitment and hiring.

AI in recruiting: an intro

Let’s start with the basics: What exactly is artificial intelligence (AI)?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capacity of a computer or system to learn, compute, relearn, correct itself, and behave like a person. AI includes Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Text Analytics, Natural Language Processing, Speech Recognition, Image Processing, and many more technologies. Python is the most extensively used programming language for AI development.

Then, we need to ask ourselves: What exactly are human resources?

Human resources (HR) is a vital component of every corporation. HR is a corporate segment that handles recruitment and selection, onboarding, performance management, employee engagement, risk management, compliance, reporting, and retirement. Sometimes learning and development sits within the HR team, too.

What does artificial intelligence mean for recruiting?

AI can assist in making critical decisions in numerous elements of HR. It may help with anything from sourcing profiles to making offers to qualified applicants. It aids in the streamlining and automation of the whole recruiting and selection process, which is typically repetitive and high in volume.

Sourcing and screening profiles
Adding additional recruiters every quarter for mass recruiting is unrealistic and may be counterproductive for various reasons. This implies that recruiters must do more with less. Furthermore, most recruiters have reported that the profiles obtained or created by search engines are usually useless, with just around 15% related to the job description.

Almost 90% of the work is spent sourcing and screening profiles. This is where AI in recruiting comes in, as it can speed up the sourcing and screening process based on the job description without sacrificing quality as it seeks exact matching. It may also rank profiles based on their overlap and job descriptions.

Scheduling interviews
Many AI technologies, or chatbots, are already being utilized in recruiting. These technologies can contact and organize interviews with the shortlisted prospects. Chatbots might ask questions to gather information about the position for which the individual is applying.

AI-powered digital interviews
AI (image processing)-powered interview software analyzes the candidate's muscular movement. It has been demonstrated that the bodily muscles do not support a person who is not speaking truthfully or confidently.

These applications (speech recognition) also aid in determining whether or not the candidate is enthusiastic about the role

AI-powered solutions enable recruiters to save time and use that time to create relationships with presented candidates, making the candidate more comfortable and increasing the likelihood they accept the offer.

Candidate rediscovery
Employers often have so many profiles in their database that specific, potentially promising individuals get buried.

Rather than investing a lot of time and money in locating and attempting to get fresh applicants interested in your firm, you may contact individuals who are already familiar with your organization and have expressed interest in the past.

Several vendors employ artificial intelligence (AI) technology to analyze your existing candidate pool for excellent former candidates who could be suitable for a new position. The ranking might contain potential profiles that have gone unnoticed for months or years.

Internal/employee referrals
Hiring high-quality candidates from within your current staff is an excellent strategy. Referred new workers are frequently better (cultural) matches, more engaged, less likely to leave, and more productive.

Employee recommendations and employee referral programs are thus on the rise.

Employee referrals are now being taken to the next level by AI technology. It enables businesses to proactively find the greatest passive talent in their workforce's network and instantly engages the appropriate employee to suggest.

Facial expression analysis
Video interviews are an excellent technique for recruiting both remote and in-person applicants.

Because even if the applicant lives very close to your company's headquarters, a video interview may save both them and you a significant amount of time. Video also allows you to get a sense of someone's energy, how they portray themselves, and so on, and gives you the chance to replay the interview numerous times.

During a video interview, AI technology can scan applicants' facial expressions, recording their moods and assessing their personality features.

So far, companies that have used AI video interviewing technology appear to be extremely satisfied with it. Some even believe that it has improved ethnic and socioeconomic diversity.

Benefits of using AI in recruitment

As you might imagine, the benefits of using AI recruiting are numerous, although challenges do exist, as we’ll see a little later.

It can ensure the best fit
AI can help employers fill in the gaps by examining the candidate's résumé, web presence, and overall fit. For example, using AI technology, one may identify a particularly active candidate in supporting social issues. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is one way AI may assist organizations in finding specific people. NLP is a more complex text analysis that goes beyond traditional Boolean keyword searches. Previously, all you could do was search resumes for keywords like "JavaScript" or "Computer Science." Based on computational linguistics models, NLP software may now deliver sophisticated insights. Recruiters may utilize these insights to categorize and rank candidates and detect personal characteristics.

It enhances online applications
Candidate tracking systems (recruiter databases) analyze and prioritize the hundreds of resumes collected online for each offered position using keywords, speech flows, and other data points. Expect corporations to monetize such technologies by repurposing them for job seekers, enabling more valuable applications from end-to-end logical analytics as employers utilize more and more composite skills to achieve this goal.

It accelerates the initial selection process
The most time-consuming process is filtering through hundreds (often thousands) of prospects to choose the top candidates for a tier-one interview. AI may hunt for matched prospects, contact them, conduct preliminary interviews, evaluate resumes, and prepare the best for an interview.

It can minimize hiring bias
The AI algorithm connects individuals to available positions based only on their talents. They only share demographic information about candidates at the interview stage. This helps firms encourage diversity and match with applicants who are suited for the position based on their skill set and experience by limiting unconscious bias.

It increases efficiency
Recruiters are frequently required to hire quickly. Recruitment agencies might be sluggish to respond. AI can analyze millions of data points in a matter of seconds, significantly exceeding the ability of humans to comb through CVs. Finding an agency, briefing them, going out to market, filtering applicants, and shortlisting may take time — and that's before you get to the interview stage. Recruiters have access to high-quality applicants when this layer is automated. With possibly thousands of IT contractors vying for a job, they must swiftly locate the correct one.

It reduces costs
Several AI-powered hiring platforms eliminate recruitment costs, making it easier and less expensive to discover the right people. Recruitment agencies are expensive, and the costs are sometimes disguised and might last a long time. AI is not cheap, but the efficient processes eliminate the need for the extra time recruiters frequently spend. Because of the reduction in overhead, the expenses for identifying a candidate have become much more realistic.

It improves the candidate experience
Companies should constantly examine how a change in procedure or technology would influence candidates and think hard before adding anything that does not make connecting with them simpler or faster.

Some talent acquisition teams are particularly good at utilizing automation and technology to scale. What distinguishes those who are doing it successfully from those who aren't is the question of whose experience they are attempting to better with it. Companies that create experiences based on internal processes typically have poor candidate experiences.

With the candidate in mind, companies that use Design Thinking to choose when and how to deploy automation are automating in a more positive way.

Challenges of using AI in recruitment

Even though AI has made recruitment processes quicker, easier, and more precise in many ways, there are certain drawbacks and limitations that should be acknowledged:

It needs a lot of data intelligence
This is a critical component that must be created for Artificial Intelligence technology to work. This creation of human-like intelligence necessitates a large amount of data, programming, and structure, and it must be evaluated regularly to guarantee that it remains valuable to the HR technology ecosystem.

It can learn human bias

While AI, in principle, makes recruiting more cost-effective, focused, and efficient by assisting firms in sifting through large numbers of resumes, in practice, it may encourage biased hiring due to its dependence on unintentionally prejudiced selection patterns such as language and demography. 

Many data professionals argue that predictive AI promotes the status quo since it is typically based on limited and insufficient data sets.

It lacks human touch
Only the human mind's sentiments and perceptions can comprehend some parts of a candidate's selection process. While an AI can screen an applicant's surface-level talents and abilities, it cannot understand a deeper study of their social life, family orientation, moral ideals, and other similar aspects.

This is where the lack of human touch is most noticeable. Various characteristics go overlooked and ignored by the AI, yet it would have been advantageous to the organization if the candidate had been selected.

It cannot be entirely reliable for screening candidates
Although the method is systematic and objective, in computer science, mistakes can occur. Where human errors occur, AI may overlook essential characteristics or exclude resourceful applicants in the name of fairness and impartiality.

An extensive application pool may make it difficult for recruiters to review thoroughly. AI can assist with this, but it is entirely dependent on the job profile data put into the system.

Conclusion

AI is gaining popularity in recruitment, owing to its enormous potential to automate some of the low-value, high-volume recruiting operations that continue to consume time and attention. While AI for recruitment has the potential to automate some currently manual processes, some functions cannot yet be substituted by technology.

AI cannot replace jobs that need social skills, empathy, and negotiating talents. It can only be used to augment human skills rather than entirely replace them. It can already replace low-value administrative duties like resume screening, but how far AI can go to replace a recruiter's ability to interact and interview applicants remains to be seen. One thing is certain: knowing the potential possibilities and limits of this new type of technology puts us in the best position to use it to become better, quicker, and more competent at what we do.