All Blogs Recruitment
Whether or not you’ve already embraced artificial intelligence in your business, the arrival of AI in recruitment will have a major impact on operations going forward. Understanding the pros and cons of its potential use by recruiters will allow you to better leverage it within your organization and adapt it to your needs.
How is artificial intelligence changing the recruiting process for the better? The answer is, in more ways than one. AI is supporting recruiters and hiring managers to fill vacancies faster and more efficiently. When used well by your business, AI can do the following:
Whether it’s writing simple job descriptions, answering candidate benefits queries via chatbot, or auto-scheduling interviews, AI can help with day-to-day tasks that might not maximize the skill sets of experienced recruiters. With the administrative tasks taken care of, recruiters’ energy can be put into where it’s most needed. This reduces bottlenecks and makes the entire hiring process run smoother.
Advances in generative AI allow recruiters to put tools such as ChatGPT to use in simple tasks. For example, the recruiter could put both the job description and candidate resume into generative AI and ask for it to summarize why that person would be a good fit for the role. It can look at both documents together and create a really succinct overview.
For roles with straightforward resume requirements or where large numbers of applicants are typical, AI recruiting software can help to pre-screen candidates to get the recruiter’s job done faster. A great example is in retail, where applications can be numerous and required skills are easily definable. Technology that screens candidates will shorten the fill time for recruiters.
Early career hiring can also really benefit from AI-enabled screening. Organizations are investing in early careers, which we alluded to in our trends report. AI screening tools and technology, paired with assessment, are helpful here because it’s a place where you have a lot of candidates.
When technology does the screening, it only looks for a minimum qualification, without the biases that real humans can bring to the process. You don’t have anyone looking at people’s names or what school they went to. Rather, you have the ability to look at skills, paired with an assessment, to ensure you have a candidate with the right qualities for the role.
A happy candidate is, hopefully, a happy new starter. Long hiring processes or those lacking transparency risk losing candidates along the way, either to rival organizations that get the job done faster or simply due to applicant frustration. By streamlining and simplifying the hiring process for candidates—or keeping them informed through AI recruit tools like chatbots—it’s easier to keep top talent on board for the duration of the process.
While artificial intelligence has many benefits for recruiters, it’s not suited to every business or every scenario. Potential downsides of its use include the below:
Rely on AI alone to do your screening, and you risk missing out on prime candidates in the event that tech fails to read between the lines on resumes and applications. For example, a low-quality chatbot screening paired with the wrong kind of digital assessment means you won’t get the best or most fitting candidates coming through to hiring leaders. Recruiters must always retain ownership of the process and be prepared to review everything AI creates to ensure it aligns with hiring objectives—whether that’s a ChatGPT-written job description or a list of candidates being moved forward to interview.
People and their networks are at the center of traditional recruitment. Where an AI-automated system might win in efficiency, what can be lost for candidate, recruiter, and employer alike is a sense of how the individuals doing the jobs might fit together in real life. People want to know where they’re going to work, who they’re going to work with. That’s why Korn Ferry has a phone line where candidates can call and talk to a person. Even when technology is supporting, we continue to be present in the process.
Whether we’re talking financial outlay for specialist AI tools or dedicating employee time for training, incorporating AI into the recruitment process outsourcing is an investment—and one that doesn’t make sense for all businesses. While AI can work wonders in high-volume recruitment, it might not provide much return for smaller companies who hire irregularly or complex roles that have variable qualification requirements. The technology works where roles are kind of repeatable, where there is volume. It might not work as well where the role means one thing in one location versus another thing in another location, for example.
In a similar vein, AI is not yet adept enough to tackle the nuances of executive search. Artificial intelligence is probably not going to apply to this process any time in the near future. At the moment it’s really just good for summarizing executive candidate reports for hiring leaders.
AI is changing the role of the recruiter every day. It’s shifting from the hunting and finding of candidates towards communicating and connecting. As more and more of the talent acquisition trends process is touched by technology, recruiters are going to be doing less of the “filling the funnel” and spending more time “talking to candidates, selling candidates, selling managers, and pairing the right folks together.”
Even if they don’t employ it at scale themselves, recruiters and CHROs need to be aware of how AI is reshaping the wider hiring landscape, and with it, business and employee expectations. That means also understanding how potential candidates are using AI in their applications—because it goes beyond just polishing up resumes.
Learn more about how Collar Search can help you leverage AI to transform your recruitment strategy and secure top talent for your organization. Embrace the future of recruitment with AI and stay ahead in the competitive market.
AI in recruiting refers to the use of artificial intelligence tools and technologies to streamline and enhance the hiring process. It helps automate tasks like candidate screening, resume parsing, interview scheduling, and more, making the process faster, efficient, and less prone to human bias.
AI improves candidate experience by offering personalized and responsive interactions. Tools like AI chatbots provide instant answers to candidate queries, while AI-powered platforms can recommend jobs tailored to individual profiles, ensuring a seamless and engaging recruitment journey.
No, AI is not a replacement for human recruiters but rather a tool to assist them. While AI can handle repetitive and data-driven tasks, human recruiters are still essential for tasks that require empathy, complex decision-making, and relationship-building with candidates and clients.
Companies can begin by identifying repetitive tasks suitable for automation, selecting the right AI tools tailored to their needs, training their teams to use these technologies, and continuously monitoring AI performance to ensure it aligns with organizational goals.
Divij Chadha is a seasoned professional leading Collar Search, a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) firm that specializes in offshore IT staffing and recruitment. With a strong foundation in the IT industry and over years of experience, Divij focuses on delivering high-quality recruitment and staffing solutions to clients globally. Under his leadership, Collar Search has become a trusted name in the RPO domain, known for its timely and reliable client services. Based in India, with a sales presence in New Jersey, USA, Divij ensures the company harnesses the best of both regions to meet diverse client needs.
Collar Search