A Proven Strategy to Enhance Talent Acquisition With Recruiting Chatbots: Updated for 2023

Even though the economy has struggled in recent months, the job market still remains candidate-driven and sourcing top talent is more important than ever.

Talent teams need to be proactive in sourcing and recruiting to keep up with the competition.

And any tool that promises to make things quicker and easier for recruiters is bound to attract a lot of attention.

One effective way to give your talent acquisition efforts a boost is by implementing recruiting chatbots into your recruiting strategy.

Chatbot technology can help with the tasks that slow recruiters down.

And automate tedious processes like screening candidates and answering frequently asked questions, allowing them to focus on engaging and equitable conversations.

Many companies were quick to adopt them into their hiring process in 2022. But as we enter 2023, recruiting chatbots have become a must-have for recruiting teams.

This guide will provide an in-depth look into recruiting chatbots, explore the benefits of using them and provide 7 proven strategies to enhance your talent acquisition efforts with recruiting chatbots in 2023.

The 1-Sentence Strategy

To enhance your talent acquisition efforts in 2023, use recruiting chatbots to automate tedious recruiting tasks and enable recruiters to focus on meaningful engagement with candidates.

Why This Strategy Gives You A Sustained Advantage

Recruiting chatbots can automate recruiting tasks, making recruiting faster and more efficient.

They also improve candidate experience, allowing candidates to get quick answers to their questions in an easy and convenient way.

The key is chatbots offer a sustained advantage as they continue to learn, adapt and evolve with time.

With continuous usage, recruiting teams are able to continuously refine their recruiting strategy and processes to ensure a superior recruiting experience.

In addition, recruiting chatbots can help recruiters focus on meaningful engagement with candidates by handling mundane recruiting tasks like screening resumes and providing answers to FAQs.

This helps create an equitable recruiting process that puts the candidate at the center of your recruiting efforts.

What Are Chatbots And How Do They Work?

A recruiting chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate conversations with human users.

The goal of recruiting chatbots is to automate recruiting tasks, improve recruiting workflows and provide personalized experiences for candidates.

It uses natural language processing (NLP) technology to understand and respond appropriately to user input which can be in the form of text, voice, or video.

Recruiting Chatbots Can Be Thought Of As Virtual Recruiting Assistants.

Assistants who help recruiters connect with the right candidates faster and more efficiently.

Tasks can include one or more of the following tasks:

• Welcoming visitors to career websites and landing pages.
• Helping with collecting candidate information for administrative purposes.
• Asking basic questions about skills and experiences.
• Answering basic questions candidates might have.
• Scheduling meetings and interviews.

Recruiting chatbots are designed in such a way as to mimic human recruiters as closely as possible.

This gives candidates the impression they’re talking to a real person, making them more receptive and building rapport.

And the nice thing is that recruiting chatbots are available 24/7, allowing companies to engage with potential candidates on their schedule and providing an efficient recruiting solution.

A Quick History Of Recruiting Chatbots

The use of recruiting chatbots is nothing new.

In fact, recruiting chatbot technology has been around since the early 2000s when it was first created to help companies recruit and source talent more efficiently.

Since then, recruiting chatbots have come a long way in terms of accuracy and effectiveness.

And more and more companies are turning to recruiting chatbots as a way to automate recruiting tasks and streamline recruiting processes.

Why 2023 Is A Big Year For Recruiting Chatbots

The recruiting landscape is always changing, and 2023 promises to be a big year for recruiting chatbots.

As the competition for top talent intensifies, recruiting chatbots will become an even more important part of any recruiting strategy.

HR and Talent Acquisition Are No Longer In The Early-Adopter Phase

Rather, recruiting chatbot usage is becoming almost ubiquitous.

Did you know that recruiting chatbot usage has grown almost tenfold since 2016?

That’s why recruiting teams need to start thinking about how they can use recruiting chatbots in their recruiting strategy.

This means that recruiting teams will need to be more knowledgeable about recruiting chatbots and how to use them to their advantage.

Chatbot technology has improved so much in recent years, and even recruiting consultants are carving a niche building recruiting chatbots.

Recruiting Chatbots And ChatGPT

One of the most popular recruiting chatbot technologies is ChatGPT, a natural language processing (NLP) platform for recruiting.

ChatGPT’s cloud-based recruiting software can be used to automate recruiting tasks, such as collecting candidate information, scheduling interviews and answering basic questions about skills and experiences.

The platform is designed to be simple and intuitive, so recruiting teams can get up and running quickly.

In addition, ChatGPT’s recruiting chatbot technology is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) so it can get smarter over time and better suit the recruiting team’s needs.

The technology has become so popular that recruiting experts have started developing recruiting chatbot templates that can be quickly customized to fit any recruiting team’s needs.

These templates include pre-defined recruiting questions, recruiting scripts and automated scheduling functions.

Using AI recruiting chatbots powered by ChatGPT can help recruiting teams save time, improve recruiting workflows and provide personalized experiences for candidates.

How to Get Started With Recruiting Chatbots

Given the increasing popularity of recruiting chatbots, it’s important that recruiting teams understand how to get started.

The Golden Opportunity For Talent Acquisition Teams In 2023

2023 is a golden opportunity for recruiting teams to get ahead of the curve and take advantage of chatbot technology.

Don't just dip your toes in.

Others have done that for you already.

Dive in and take full advantage.

Recruiting teams who embrace recruiting chatbots can reap the rewards of improved recruiting efficiencies, cost savings, increased candidate engagement and better recruiting outcomes.

And the faster you adopt recruiting chatbots, the sooner you can start reaping these rewards.

With recruiting chatbot technology becoming more powerful and accessible, there’s never been a better time to get started.

The 3 Reasons HR Teams Fail At Chatbot Projects

No matter how well you plan, recruiting chatbot projects can fail.

That’s why it’s important to be prepared and have a strategy for success.

If you are interested in implementing a recruiting chatbot, be sure to avoid these pitfalls.

#1 — Lack of understanding of the technology or are unaware of the recruiting chatbot best practices.

Your recruiting team must have a clear understanding of what recruiting tasks need to be automated and how they will benefit from leveraging recruiting chatbots.

If you don’t take the time to properly plan and understand your recruiting chatbot project, then it will likely fail.

#2 — Waiting for consensus on what the chatbot should say.

Don’t wait for consensus on every recruiting chatbot response.

Instead, think of recruiting chatbots as living organisms that evolve over time.

Start with a few recruiting scripts, and then improve them based on data-driven insights and feedback from recruiting teams and candidates.

This will help you create a recruiting chatbot that is more personalized and engaging.

#3 — Focusing on recruiting tasks over the candidate experience.

Recruiting teams must remember that recruiting chatbots are meant to improve the recruiting process, but they should not be used to replace real people.

The focus should always be on the candidate experience and ensuring recruiting teams deliver a great recruiting process.

Recruitment bots should be used to automate mundane recruiting tasks, freeing up recruiting teams’ time to focus on more meaningful recruiting activities.

How To Partner With Your Web Developer Or IT Team To Install A Chatbot

Yet again, success with chatbots boils down to planning and working well with experts in your company who can help you with implementation.

The IT team usually plays a major role in the success of recruiting chatbot projects, so it’s important to identify their role from the start.

Your web developer or IT team should be included early on in the process as they will be able to help with installing and integrating recruiting chatbots on your recruiting website or applicant tracking system.

They will also be able to help with troubleshooting any technical issues that may arise during implementation.

The #1 Concern From IT Is Security

When it comes to recruiting chatbots, the #1 concern from IT teams is security.

It’s important to understand that recruiting chatbots are not prone to malicious activities, but they can be vulnerable to data breaches due to poor implementation or design.

That’s why it’s important to partner with your IT team early on in the process and ensure that recruiting chatbot data is stored securely.

IT teams also may have other questions or concerns you should ask your chatbot vendor:

- What technical requirements are needed to install the recruiting chatbot?

- Does the recruiting chatbot have access to any external APIs or databases?

- Are there any integration costs associated with installing and integrating recruiting chatbots into existing recruiting systems?

Partnering with your IT team and recruiting chatbot vendor will help ensure a smooth implementation.

A List Of Example Companies Using Chatbots In Recruiting

You know what's cool?

It's the organizations you WOULDN'T expect to be using recruitment chatbots who are the ones using them.

I collected a list of career sites of organizations using recruiting chatbots, broken down by industry vertical below.

Just visit their career page. You might have to start an application.

But remember: you're not wasting anyone's time — it's a computer doing the work.

- Fast food and restaurants: McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell

- Hospitality: Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotels & Resorts

- Professional Services: Deloitte, Ernst & Young

- Retail: Target, Best Buy

- Healthcare: Kaiser Permanente, Blue Cross Blue Shield

- Financial Services: Bank of America, Citigroup

- Education: Yale University, Princeton University

- Manufacturing: Boeing Company, Apple Inc.

How Chatbots Help With The Actual Sourcing Of Talent

Recruiting chatbots can help recruiting teams with a variety of recruiting tasks, such as:

• Automatically scheduling interviews

• Screening candidates more efficiently

• Collecting candidate information

• Answering basic recruiting questions

• Providing personalized recruiting experiences for each candidate.

Companies often find using chatbots brings measurable business outcomes, too.

Let's walk through these.

Improve Candidate Experience

One of the most important things candidates value is plenty of clear communication.

As a survey by Allegis shows, over half of the candidates questioned were comfortable communicating with chatbots, both in the early stages and when it came time to schedule interviews.

With chatbots constantly evolving and learning to communicate in a more natural way, candidate experience can only improve.

This is helped by the fact that unlike human recruiters, chatbots are available 24/7.

This flexibility can be a great help for candidates with unconventional working schedules.

Taking on Administrative Tasks

As we already mentioned, chatbots can also help recruiters manage administrative tasks that would otherwise take up a lot of time and effort better spent on making hiring decisions.

These tasks are divided into two main categories.

First, chatbots are used to collect candidate information during the sourcing process.

This way, recruiters have immediate access to candidates’ contact info and resume.

Second, chatbots can schedule interviews and meetings.

This is especially important in the case of a remote interview since finding a time that works for both the interviewer and the candidate can be tricky.

Screening Applications

Screening candidate applications is one of the most time-consuming parts of the hiring process.

This is especially true with a high number of applications, as recruiters are under even more pressure to make the right choice quickly.

Chatbots like the ones provided by Humanly can help with this process by conducting a sort of pre-interview.

The recruitment bots will ask candidates questions in order to find the ones with the right skills and experience for the position.

Qualifying Candidates

Chatbots can outperform human recruiters both in the number of conversations they can have at the same time and the fact they can answer any candidate questions almost instantly.

This leaves them in a unique position when it comes to qualifying candidates.

Asking candidates questions and then comparing the answers to a list of predetermined filters, chatbots can grade and rank candidates by how well they would fit in with your company.

Once all the applications have been screened and all the candidates interviewed, recruiters are sent a shortlist of the most promising potential hires.

Recruiters can then focus on interviewing these candidates, getting to know them better and coming to a hiring decision.

Answering Candidate Questions

Asking candidates questions isn’t the only thing chatbots can do.

Much like in the case of customer support, chatbots can also be used to answer any questions candidates may have about the company and the job opening.

Even if a chatbot can’t answer a more complex question, they can still get the candidate in touch with a recruiter that might be able to help.

Fostering Diversity With Language

Did you know that recruiting chatbots can be used to foster diversity in recruiting?

Chatbots can even be equipped with language recognition software in order to offer localized recruitment experiences for international applicants.

More advanced bots are also able to process complex communication, like slang and industry jargon.

The best ones are programmed in a way that makes the conversation flow and feels natural.

This also lets them communicate with a wider range of candidates, some of whom might be put off by a conversation that sounds too formal.

Saving Time With Fewer Resources

2022 was challenging with recruiting teams having to do more and with fewer resources.

Chatbots can help recruiters reclaim a large chunk of their day by taking on time-consuming and process-heavy tasks.

This mostly refers to resume screening and administrative tasks.

This newfound time lets recruiters focus on what they do best - forming meaningful connections with candidates and using their expertise to make great hiring decisions.

These relationships will both help them attract top talent and create a talent pool they can fall back to in case of any new job opening.

The Best AI Recruiting Chatbots

This is normally where I would start selling you our recruiting chatbot, but this isn’t about that.

Nor do I have a list of the best recruiting chatbots, because this is a rapidly evolving and ever-changing field.

The Best Chatbot For You Is The One You'll Actually Use

Just like a gym membership, the best recruiting chatbot is the one you’ll actually use.

When looking for recruiting chatbots, look for ones that can be integrated with your existing recruiting process and tools.

As far as keeping your chatbot up to date , look for chatbots that are easy to customize and have a good support team that can help you optimize the conversation when needed.

The best recruiting chatbot isn’t the flashiest or most expensive - it’s the one that helps you hire great people with as few resources and time as possible.

Conclusion

Chatbots are quickly becoming an essential recruiting tool and a crucial part of any recruiting team.

From automating the screening process to fostering diversity and saving time, recruiting chatbots can make life easier for recruiters and help them acquire top talent with fewer resources.

The best recruiting chatbot isn’t necessarily the most expensive or the flashiest - it’s the one that you actually use.

When looking for recruiting chatbots, make sure to look for ones that can be easily integrated with your existing recruiting process and tools, and have a good support team to help you optimize the conversation when needed.

Good luck on your talent acquisition journey!