With the advent of ChatGPT and its amazing technological capacities, many people start acknowledging the power of AI and its emerging effect on every area of our life. In other words, AI is becoming the norm, and it’s slowly invading human spaces like never before. However, this is not our topic.
This article isn’t a dystopian account of AI taking over our human liberties, jobs, and skills. It’s more like a positive overview of how and why we should use AI to maximize our productivity, increase our efficiency, and achieve optimal success, especially for recruitment.
So, if you’re an HR professional or recruiter, this article is for you. We’ll cover what AI is for recruitment, its benefits & challenges, and why you should use it.
And, don't worry, this text isn’t generated by ChatGPT!
What is AI for recruitment?
Simply, AI for recruitment is the use of artificial intelligence to facilitate the process of recruiting and talent acquisition. This includes the use of machine learning and automation to shortlist and screen ideal candidates while also dealing with repetitive, high-volume tasks.
One example is using AI-powered software to auto-screen the best candidates for a certain job. For instance, Parsing and screening software utilizes natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to gather detailed information from resumes about work experience, skills, and education. Then, the information is analyzed and compared to the job requirements to shortlist and screen the best candidate for the job.
Just imagine how much time and energy it would take to do this manually. However, with the power of AI, you can automate this process while focusing on other things. Similarly, you can use artificial intelligence tools to streamline other parts of your workflow.
Now, let’s check some of the benefits of using AI for recruitment!
The benefits of AI for recruitment
It saves you time through automation
One of the best perks of AI is that it can perform incredibly complex and time-consuming tasks faster and more efficiently. This means it can save you a lot of time and trouble when it comes to performing high-volume and repetitive tasks manually. So, AI can help you achieve more with less.
As a recruiter, you might have countless tasks and objectives that you should deal with - it can be overwhelming and exhausting. With artificial intelligence and automation, you can save both your time & energy while meeting your goals.
Accordingly, time-consuming tasks like screening and shortlisting candidates, and scheduling interviews can be performed with AI-powered software in a timely manner.
As an HR professional, you can even use AI to test your candidates' relevancy for a certain position. With AI, you can run pre-employment tests to analyze and assess candidates’ skills and abilities. This can help identify which candidate is best for the job without wasting plenty of time.
It elevates the quality of hire!
Before AI, the quality of hires was limited to recruiters’ analysis of data and KPIs. This means recruiters could identify the best fit for a particular role. However, it was still unpredictable how the candidate would fare after getting the job. And, this had uncertain consequences on the quality of hires. Sometimes, candidates fared well, or they didn’t.
But, thanks to AI, now recruiters can be more certain about identifying the right candidates for open roles. AI can collect a huge amount of data, analyze it, and then assess candidates’ skills and qualifications to be compared with the job requirements. Thus, AI creates a standardized job matching pattern that matches the best candidates for the right open jobs. As a result, recruiters can have predictive data to inform better decisions in terms of hiring the right people.
In return, this improves the quality of hires, increases productivity, and lowers turnover rates.
Challenges of using AI for recruitment
It requires a big amount of data
One of the shortcomings of AI is that it requires a lot of data to learn and replicate human logic and intelligence. For example, If you want AI-powered software that screens resumes as effectively as a human recruiter, you’ll need a big amount of data to be analyzed. We’re speaking about hundreds if not thousands of resumes for each role.
This applies to almost everything and not only screening candidates. If you want AI to develop and learn to do something as good as human beings or better, you need to feed crazy amounts of data.
It can internalize human biases
You might argue that AI is a great solution to deal with human biases in recruitment by ignoring data related to age, race, or gender. However, this is not always the case. The problem with AI is that it’s designed to learn human patterns based on their behaviors and processes.
So, if any biases exist in your recruitment processes, there is a high likelihood that AI would learn those biases and apply them by default leading to biased assessments and evaluations of candidates.
To prevent this problem, ensure your AI software is designed and programmed free from any biases that exist in your recruitment processes. Also, you should consistently monitor your AI to make sure it’s always bias-free.
Resistance to new technology
Like anything in this new world, new technologies are trends that come and go - but this does apply to AI. Who knows?
This uncertainty makes HR professionals and recruitment leaders skeptical and resistant to AI as a technology. Although it has a great potential of making jobs more efficient and streamlining workflows, nobody is sure if AI is reliable enough. Some professionals might even be threatened by AI’s capabilities and they feel as though they’re getting replaced by a machine. All this creates resistance and skepticism toward AI.
Data and privacy
As mentioned, AI needs a tremendous amount of data in order to make predictions or function properly. This poses data and privacy issues when it comes to collecting and storing the data of plenty of candidates.
Some people might be uncomfortable about their data being collected, stored, and used for whatever reason. Accordingly, companies must be ready to invest in data & privacy policies to protect themselves and their candidates.
Wrapping up
No doubt, AI provides many promises and advantages that can improve and revolutionize the way work and our roles as recruiters and HR professionals. However, AI has its shortcomings that can make us reluctant and resistant toward it. But, it doesn’t have to be like this. As they say, take the best and leave the rest. This means we should use AI in a way that improves our roles and jobs. In the end, the role of technology is to improve the quality of our lives professionally and personally.