Identifying, attracting, and hiring top talent is essential for the growth of your company.
This fact puts a lot of pressure on your recruitment and hiring specialist, as it’s their responsibility to identify the right people for the job, and that’s a complex and time-intensive task. Especially if we bear in mind that they have to sift through and shortlist a number of applications and then conduct interviews with the best candidates.
No wonder that many talent acquisition leaders say screening candidates and picking the ones who are the right fit among a huge pool of applicants is one of their biggest challenges. On top of it all, 87% of HR specialists say that they struggle to find qualified applicants for their job openings.
Luckily, new technology has a solution for all this.
Let’s discuss how your recruiting strategy can benefit from implementing AI and HR software.
1. Streamline Your Candidate Sourcing Process
Having a lot of recruitment sources is a great thing, but this abundance becomes a downside when you realize that you have to go through different social media platforms and other available channels looking for the perfect candidate.
This is, undoubtedly, an extremely time-consuming and challenging process, and what’s even worse is that you can accidentally fail to notice someone who would be a great asset to your company.
Powerful AI algorithms have the capacity to analyze millions of candidate sources within a short period of time. Their speed and effectiveness don’t come at the expense of quality – their findings are detailed and accurate meaning that you’ll have enough information to make a list of the best candidates.
Moreover, recruiters can’t be expected to know highly specific jargon used for highly technical positions, which means that they won’t be able to properly conduct their searches. This can result in overlooking a number of potentially relevant candidates.
AI, on the other hand, goes beyond the exact wording, thus expanding the search with relevant industry-specific phrases and terms. In addition to that, AI supports sophisticated search based on meaning and intent, unlike regular, word-matching algorithms.
2. Find the Right Candidates
Targeting passive candidates is one of the most effective recruitment approaches.
But, it would be almost impossible to conduct such an analysis without AI. This technology is capable of searching through and processing huge amounts of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, which is essential for analyzing data coming from different sources and in different formats.
For example, there are AI-powered tools that allow you to analyze people’s online presence using their social media profiles and other available information. We’re talking about powerful search and analytics tools with the capacity to sift through billions of data pages per day, meaning that you can get the most relevant data within seconds and without having to browse through numerous LinkedIn or Facebook profiles.
Based on the collected intel, these tools can make predictions such as whether a particular person would be willing to consider a job offer. Similarly, you’ll have relevant insight into potential candidates’ skills and personalities.
These tools also enable you to analyze the profiles of your existing employees and help you find similar candidates by comparing and combining data.
3. Keep Your Candidates Engaged
As the recruitment and hiring process can take a while, it’s very important to keep your applicants posted about the latest developments as well as to keep them engaged.
HR departments are responsible for communicating with candidates and letting them know about the progress of the screening process. There are numerous tedious and time-consuming tasks to complete, which is why this part of their job should be automated.
Conversational chatbots are perfect for this role, as they have been successfully implemented in customer support. In this case, these smart algorithms can be used for verifying applications, answering candidates’ questions, and providing updates about the recruitment process.
It’s worth mentioning that chatbots also significantly improve employee experience, which is why their role isn’t limited to the hiring process – they also have an active role in onboarding your new hires. If you want your new employees to fulfill their potential, showing them the ropes and training them for their new position is crucial.
Chatbots can automate and facilitate onboarding. Your new hires can schedule onboarding sessions whenever it’s convenient for them, even outside business hours, and they can progress at their own pace.
4. Reduce Potential Bias
Whether we want to admit it or not, HR specialists are only people and they can also be prone to unconscious bias. Unfortunately, the result of this is not only a lack of diversity in the workplace but sometimes also poor decision-making.
Properly trained AI-powered algorithms and HR software can eliminate bias from the equation and find the best candidates regardless of their race, name, looks, gender, or any other factor that might lead to prejudice. It’s not uncommon that certain candidates can be unfavorably treated during the resume reviewing process. Recruiters can discriminate against women, POC, minorities, or people of a certain age, without being aware of what they’re doing.
AI tools can be trained to pay attention only to candidates’ skills, experience, and culture fit. This so-called “blind hiring” can significantly reduce bias and help you pick the best candidate and prevent discrimination on any basis.
When choosing an AI solution for your recruitment process, talk to the vendor about any biases that already exist and ask them to remove the existing patterns (such as mainly opting for candidates from certain schools) that the tool might pick up from your hiring practice.
AI and HR software can transform your recruiting strategy by making it easier for you to attract and hire top talent effectively and without wasting your resources. These advanced tools will also allow you to create a positive and stimulating working environment, and grow your business as a result.
