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Artificial intelligence (AI) is shaping entire sectors and industries within our economy. And it may be said that the most human of all industries, recruiting and talent acquisition, is one of the last places AI will touch.
However, AI is rapidly advancing—to the point where people’s evaluation and placement at companies is being dramatically shaped by AI technology.
So, here are a few ways AI is changing the business of talent acquisition:
Smart HR for Sourcing Talent
One of the most common ways AI shapes talent acquisition is by sourcing and engaging candidates.
Companies use a variety of platforms to source talent—some traditional, such as LinkedIn or Indeed.com, and some more novel, like job boards that post openings on several sites simultaneously or niche sites focusing on a particular skill set. (Also read: College Grads Need These Data Science Skills.)
However, in many cases, AI-based recruiting technology is being used to automatically reach out to potential employees, with data taken in from multiple public and proprietary data sources. Effective candidate-job matching is a sophisticated technological issue; but it’s one many software companies are tackling. The candidate-job matches AI makes are then used to flag prospective personnel to campaign to; and AI facilitates this by generating email or text-based outreach.
So, the next time you receive a recruiting email, there is a good chance you are receiving that communication because of AI!
Smart HR for Assessing Applicants
Another way AI shapes talent acquisition is through its use in candidate assessment.
Technology is used to score resumes and identify candidates best suited for a position. This technology looks at various factors—such as experience, skills and education levels. It then compares this data against a company’s specific needs to recommend the most qualified candidates for a given position. This saves the recruiter time and helps ensure the best candidates are being considered for each job.
However, AI’s use in talent acquisition is perhaps most controversial when applied to candidate assessment. For example, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece on machine learning (ML)-based applicant tracking systems and how they “reject” millions of applicants. With the job market very much in focus and people emphasizing the need to accept diverse candidates from all walks of life, the prospect of putting machines in charge of candidate assessments is, largely, being met with skepticism. (Also read: Why Diversity is Essential for Quality Data to Train AI.)
Smart HR to Onboard and Engage Employees
Finally, AI is also being used to help with the onboarding process.
How? To start, AI can create customized learning paths for new employees based on their skills and interests and match them, based on their interests, to similar groups and individuals at the company. This helps employees get up to speed faster and be more productive sooner. It also helps reduce the amount of training needed, saving companies time and money. This is especially valuable for large organizations with thousands of knowledge workers—many of these are using AI to help understand their employee base’s skills and interests which, in turn, helps them align these skills and interests to their learning paths and needed project skills.
Moreover, next year, AI will start to have a significant impact on overall company culture. It is already beginning to change what people do at work and how they interact with their team members. For instance, Recruiter.com has identified hybrid or remote work as a top trend for 2022—and with that comes the need for more robust and interactive engagement tools to promote a cohesive and productive culture. A tremendous amount of funding is currently flowing to employee engagement tools for this reason. (Also read: The Pros And Cons of The Hybrid Workforce.)
In short, AI promises to deliver engagement at scale by driving a deeper understanding of individual skills across large groups of people.
Conclusion
AI has a significant impact on talent acquisition and recruiting—from sourcing prospective staff through to employee onboarding and engagement. Recruiters and talent acquisition professionals use AI tools to source candidates more efficiently, assess them more accurately and onboard them more quickly. As a result, companies can find and hire better employees, which will help them be more successful.
How do you think AI will impact human resources and talent acquisition in the future? Let us know by tagging @techopedia on Twitter!
