Whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more and more present in our everyday life and environment. A few years back, AI was still a relatively futuristic concept, breathtaking innovation, and a source of numerous questions and scenarios.
But 2020 and the unsought arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic altered everything. Lockdowns and limited freedom of movement forced us to become increasingly reliant on technology and its possibilities.
By now, it's widely known that these events resulted in astonishing technological acceleration. According to McKinsey, human response to the pandemic sped up technology adoption by several years, and most changes are here to stay.
However, personalized and more on-point tech was needed for more than faster delivery, better entertainment, and social connections. Yet, businesses require it to stay ahead of the competition, meet new demands, and hire employees in a virtual environment.
No wonder AI adoption skyrocketed in the past 24 months. Harvard Business Review survey found that the use of AI and analytics increased and will continue throughout the 2020s.
Moreover, 86 percent of respondents said they now consider AI the mainstream technology. Since 72 percent feel optimistic about AI's role in the future, it will likely evolve faster than we expect and become a regular tool of all TA and HR pros.
AI recruitment will enter the line of ongoing hiring practices, and those who fail to adopt it will struggle to persevere in the tech-dominated world. Here's everything you should know about this transition and how to use it to your advantage.
What is AI Recruitment, and What is its Purpose?
Nothing can escape the imminent comprehensive AI transformation. Talent Acquisition and Human Resources are among the departments already facing this transition, adopting different AI-driven recruitment software and platforms.
And that's what this recruitment type is about -leveraging AI-powered technology across various hiring process stages. But what makes these platforms valuable, and what's the purpose of AI recruitment software?
These tools are a stellar way to automate and simplify the hiring process, ensuring hiring managers and talent acquisition professionals save the time they would spend on repetitive, time-consuming, and manual tasks. Thanks to AI, they will be able to focus on those aspects of the recruitment process that depend on human intervention and thought processes.
Yet, that's not the only area where AI helps TA and HR professionals excel and perform their jobs faster. AI recruitment tools also help companies improve their recruitment practices by pinpointing more qualified and compatible job applicants and sourcing candidates.
These platforms play a significant role in taking the candidate experience to a higher level, enabling a more straightforward job application process for job seekers and a swifter, more direct communication with employers. Thus, in many cases, companies can integrate AI recruitment software into their existing ATS or CRM.
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The Most Common Uses of AI Technology in the Recruitment Process
When considering the adoption of AI recruitment software, companies often wonder how they can use it and whether there's a need to implement it. If you're on the verge of adding AI technology to your tech stack, here's a list of the most common ways you can use it.
Automate Time-Consuming, Tedious, and Manual Tasks
Is there anything more annoying and redundant than spending time on repetitive assignments that even a machine could efficiently perform? Ask any TA or HR professional, and the answer will be a clear no.
Manual tasks might be important and unavoidable but completing them instead of automating them is a waste of time. Not every aspect of the recruitment process requires human input to ensure its value and smooth completion.
It's even more important to automate these assignments when the hiring volume increases or you must hire a quality candidate in a short time. That's when you must be more efficient and do as much as you can while using the least resources possible.
For instance, manual resume screening is among the most time-consuming parts of the hiring process. HR professionals must often evaluate multiple CVs daily when hiring for a new job role.
What makes the situation direr is that 42 percent of resumes don't meet the basic skill requirements. That should come as no surprise since 78 percent of candidates admitted they would submit for a role when they don't match all the qualifications.
However, AI helps recruiters and hiring managers focus on recruitment steps requiring their unique human input without removing resume screening. Instead, AI takes charge of this task, using its intelligent algorithms to assess resumes and identify candidates who meet the job criteria and have relevant skills.
That's only the tip of the iceberg since AI also automates interview scheduling, another tedious responsibility. Thanks to AI-driven recruitment software, candidates and recruiters no longer need to go back and forth about the best date for both parties, as automation allows them to select the most appropriate day and hour.
AI can streamline and automate significant chunks of your workflows and merge with your existing recruitment platforms and apps. That way, it can provide greater support and accelerate multiple elements of the recruitment process.
Leverage automation to reduce time spent on communication
Another element that takes time, and most recruiters wish they could have a robot performing it instead of them, is communication with candidates, leads, and stakeholders. Naturally, AI can't replace humans in every aspect, and it's impossible to have robots carrying out meaningful and vital conversations.
However, AI recruitment technology can ease initial communication, answer elementary questions, and simplify back-and-forth emails. For instance, AI-powered chatbots and SMS systems allow job applicants to talk directly with the organization without the intermediation of recruitment agencies.
Gauge Large Chunks of Documents
AI recruitment tools can simplify the process of assessing multiple incoming documents by taking charge of this. They can evaluate and verify an astonishing amount of data, ensuring recruiters and TA professionals don't have to struggle with this.
For example, AI can review employee paperwork, resumes, and team documents.
Candidate Sourcing
AI can take over the demanding and tedious assignment of finding and identifying candidates that match the job requirements, even if they didn't previously send a job application.
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Benefits of Using AI in Recruitment
Although you might already assume what you get out of using AI recruitment software, here are the benefits you can expect.
Reduces the Number of Recruitment Workloads
Automation can significantly reduce the workload for recruiters, TA professionals, and hiring managers. AI handles the screening process, assesses job applicants, optimizes the placement of job ads, schedules interviews with the candidates, and gives intelligent suggestions, allowing them to do more and complete additional assignments.
Finds Job Applicants Faster
AI is capable of scanning and categorizing job applicants from multiple sources, accelerating the search, refining the results, and establishing talent pools for future purposes. Thanks to that, it helps HR and TA professionals save time and get more accurate and desirable outcomes.
Improves the Candidate Experience
AI recruitment tools leverage intelligent text messaging and chatbots for job applicants to communicate with what they believe is the company or its recruiters themselves. As a result, it increases engagement, keeps candidates informed, and encourages them to stay in the selection process until the last stage.
Eliminates Potential Bias
The goal of AI tech is to be objective, impartial, and fair. It has no opinions, stereotypes, or prejudices.
AI only follows predefined criteria and guidance in identifying candidates with the right set of skills, capabilities, and experiences. The search results in a list of the most compatible talents with the predisposition to perform the job well.
Reduces Time to Hire
Since AI recruitment helps accelerate processes, eliminate time-consuming tasks, keep candidates interested throughout the process, and facilitate extending job offers and onboarding, companies can employ top talents faster and spend fewer resources.
Boosts the Quality of Hire
Besides identifying job applicants who fit best the job criteria and preferences, AI can also use multiple valuable sources for its talent search. Variety helps increase the quality of hire because a company wouldn't be restricted to a single job board or platform.
AI also helps find and reach passive candidates, giving you more options.
Best AI Recruitment Practices
Here are the best practices you can leverage to make the most of AI recruitment technology.
Use AI-Powered ATS
Although it depends on the software, AI can be integrated into the ATS platform. That gives it the ability to automate resume screening, offer accurate recommendations, interact with the candidates, etc.
For example, Manatal's ATS is AI-powered and can handle everything mentioned above. That makes it a tool that could give your hiring process superpowers, doesn't it?
And that's precisely the AI tech you should use to improve your quality of hire and streamline multiple processes. Thanks to this option, you can access holistic candidate profiles with actionable data, flexible search functionalities, look up various criteria simultaneously, send batch notifications to candidates and clients, and much more.
Use AI to Get Advanced Insights and Reports
AI recruitment software allows top-notch reports and analytics you can access from a highly customizable interface. Leverage ATS platforms with an AI-driven recommendation engine that will help you find the most suitable job applicants for every vacancy.
Parse batches of candidate data and information and let AI rank it based on relevancy and your criteria. Customize filters and identify the best match, enabling you to hire a job applicant whose location, skills, experience, and objectives align with your job requirements and organizational goals.
Use AI to Streamline Your Work
Combining different AI tools within an ATS platform will help simplify and accelerate your workflows and boost recruitment success. However, you should do it right and intentionally.
Evaluate your hiring goals and what areas are vital to your company's performance. AI recruitment can help you improve communication, collaboration, engagement, and time-to-hire.
But you must establish a top-notch strategy that will help you use AI tools in a holistic way and optimize your results. You can work on multiple goals simultaneously or focus on enhancing the quality of hire and leveraging AI recommendations and analytics.
Use AI to Boost Diversity and Inclusion
Another vital aspect of a successful hiring process and stellar team performance is nurturing diversity, equity, and inclusion. AI can also help you in this aspect by helping you expand your outreach and look for candidates in multiple places.
Moreover, you can leverage AI recruitment to widen your search criteria and target diverse talents. You can also encompass the broader concept of diversity and look for neurodiverse candidates, which will help you tap into different perspectives and approaches.
How will AI Change HR and the Recruiter Role?
Many believe AI is the future, as these tools will weave through our everyday lives and jobs. That's the likeliest scenario since AI adoption is already accelerating and finding its way to all fields and professions.
Therefore, AI is the future of HR and Talent Acquisition too. But not everyone is excited about this inevitability.
In fact, conspiracies and doubts have been surrounding AI from the very beginning. HR professionals and recruiters are no exception - many fear how this will impact their departments and jobs and whether there will still be a need for their input.
But according to industry experts, augmented intelligence is the most likely scenario for the future of HR. That means artificial intelligence can never fully replace humans, their logic, feelings, and minds.
Augmented intelligence aims to serve as a helpful tool supporting humans and enabling them to be more apt and efficient. It won't replace them, but it will help them increase their effectiveness and improve their methods and efforts.
Recruiters, TA professionals, and hiring managers will use AI to streamline their jobs, automate repetitive assignments, and achieve more in less time. Hence, their roles will change by becoming more proactive and focused on meaningful tasks that generate additional business value.
Moreover, HR professionals will have more time to focus on connecting with their candidates and employees and creating genuinely inclusive workplaces. That will allow them to direct most of their actions and strategies toward the human part of HR and make a lasting positive difference in the industry.
Avoiding AI and refraining from considering its value and benefits will cause you to stay behind your competitors and not provide the best possible experience for your candidates and employees.
Instead, think about how you can use these tools to do more and have a greater impact.
Manatal's AI recruitment software is comprehensive, multifunctional, and designed to help you achieve more. Discover how and dive into all its benefits by unlocking your 14-day Free Trial.