Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform every facet of human work. It can help augment or even replace the tools we use every day, streamlining our work and increasing productivity.
Recruiters can benefit from letting AI take on time-consuming tasks like candidate sourcing and screening. And while this technology can help take your hiring process to the next level, there are both pros and cons to consider.
What is AI Recruiting?
First, we should probably take a step back and define AI itself. Quoting Vishal Maini from DeepMind, artificial intelligence (AI) is the study of agents that perceive the world around them, form plans and make decisions to achieve their goals.
One of the most important aspects of AI is its ability to learn. For instance, an AI can look at a set of decisions a human has made based on certain information, and learn how to make decisions based on similar future information.
It’s exactly this feature of AI that holds the most promise when it comes to recruitment.
With that in mind, AI in recruiting is an attempt to use AI to automate certain stages of the recruiting process. This can refer to analyzing large sets of data or using machine learning to mimic decisions made by human recruiters.
How Can AI Recruiting Help Your Business?
In the hands of an experienced recruiter, AI can make your company’s hiring process faster and more cost-effective, while improving the quality of new hires.
There are three main areas where AI recruiting can be used:
Sourcing
There are two approaches to AI recruiting that can help you connect with potential candidates faster.
The first one is by collecting candidate data from job boards, employee databases, or social media platforms like LinkedIn. By automating this process, recruiters can save a lot of time and effort and focus on picking the best candidate.
The second one is actively reaching out to potential candidates. AI chatbots can contact potential candidates, ask questions and use the answers to determine if the candidate would be a good addition to your team.
Screening
This is where the decision-making process we described earlier comes in. AI can parse candidate resumes and point out the relevant skills and experience.
Combining data from a resume with a skill test can also help AI predict a candidate’s performance. This can provide useful insight, speeding up the hiring process and helping recruiters find the best fit.
Engagement and Interviews
One of the ways AI can be used in interviews is to analyze the candidate’s facial expression, voice, and word choice and predict personality traits. While this approach is used by companies such as Google and Facebook, the results are still somewhat unreliable.
The second way is to have an AI chatbot ask preliminary questions and analyze the candidate’s answers. You can use the data recorded in this pre-interview to give more context to the impression the candidate leaves during the interview itself.
The Pros and Cons of AI Recruiting
Like any new technology, AI recruiting has the potential to make life a lot easier for recruiters, but there are also downsides to keep in mind.
Pro: Both More Efficient and Effective
The main benefit of using AI recruiting is just how much faster it can make the hiring process.
To illustrate, a recruiter can take up to 23 hours to take a candidate through the entire hiring funnel, including application, screening, shortlisting, and interview.
An AI, on the other hand, can analyze thousands of applications instantly, comparing them to a list of job requirements and sending the recruiter only the most qualified candidates.
AI can also increase the pool of potential candidates. Aside from helping recruiters with the initial job applications, it can also reach out to other qualified candidates on social media.
This also allows for remote interviews, hiring, and onboarding, making the hiring process more efficient.
Pro: Lower Costs
According to findings by SHRM, the average cost per hire is $4,129 for a single open position. Using AI to help with candidate screening can save you up to 30% of this cost per candidate.
There is also the matter of long-term costs. Hiring the wrong candidate can be an expensive mistake, costing as much as 2.5 salaries. AI can help mitigate this by reducing bias during the hiring process and making sure your recruiter has the best candidates to choose from.
Pro: Better Candidate Experience
AI chatbots and similar online tools can help make the hiring process more convenient for both recruiters and candidates. They do so by automatically scheduling interviews and letting recruiters interview candidates remotely.
AI chatbots can also be designed to answer any of the questions a candidate may have, at any time. This quick access to information will also be useful once you fill out the position since the new hire can also be onboarded remotely.
Con: Requires a Lot of Data
The main downside of machine learning, in general, is that it requires huge data sets to make decisions properly. Machine learning algorithms will need thousands or millions of data points in order to successfully mimic human decision-making.
This means that, depending on the type of solution you choose, the process of setting up AI recruiting can be expensive and time-consuming.
Con: AI Can Still Learn Bias
One of the main selling points of AI recruiting is the potential to eliminate bias from the hiring process.
It’s a part of human nature that we have an easier time connecting with people that share a similar look and background to ours. This can lead to unconscious bias in recruiting, which AI promises to fix by only focusing on the most qualified candidates.
However, we already mentioned that AI learns by analyzing decisions made by hiring professionals. If these decisions already contain a dose of unconscious bias, AI can learn to replicate these biases while screening candidates.
Con: New and Uncertain
Finally, there’s the question of the future of AI in recruiting.
It seems that hardly a day goes by without some new technology or a piece of software promising to make the hiring process easier and more efficient. Because of this, some recruiters might be reluctant to embrace AI, seeing it as just another passing fad.
Some hiring experts may even be concerned that as AI recruiting grows more and more sophisticated, they may wind up being out of work.
The Bottom Line
AI recruiting can help streamline the hiring process by taking care of time-consuming tasks like screening and interviewing candidates, saving you time and money in the long run. But, like any other technology, it also has its downsides.
Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if AI recruiting is right for your business. If you’re interested in using AI in your hiring process, Humanly can offer outstanding solutions for sourcing, screening, and engaging potential candidates.
