What impact will artificial intelligence have on recruitment and the recruitment profession?
In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become part of our lives. It has also impacted our professional sphere and the way we do business. This is also the case for the recruiting profession, which has undergone significant change in recent years. But what are we talking about? And how is AI impacting recruitment and recruiters?
Simply put, Artificial Intelligence is....
The set of theories and techniques that develop complex computer programs capable of simulating certain traits of human intelligence.
There’s no denying that AI has entered the minds of recruiters… However, its scope of action is neither exhaustive nor absolute.
Artificial intelligence + recruiter = "augmented" recruiter
It’s a fact, recruiters are starting to embrace new technologies to better recruit… And while only 39% of recruiters said they wanted to leverage artificial intelligence for talent sourcing, only 14% were actually doing so in 2019 [1].
One of the reasons for this timidity is that HR data, algorithms, machine learning [2] and other “augmented” tools are still new and innovative practices… We’re still a long way from the “classicism of artificial intelligence” .
AI makes recruiters' daily lives easier
Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that artificial intelligence is indeed changing the recruiter’s job, as he or she gradually transforms into an “augmented recruiter”.
AI’s vocation is to enable recruitment professionals to facilitate and automate some of their actions, to carry them out on a larger scale.
Here, this technology capitalizes on human skills to save the recruiter time, increase efficiency and enable him or her to refocus on higher value-added tasks (interviewing candidates, etc.).
Artificial intelligence: a more efficient recruiter thanks to intelligent new tools
New technologies are designed to help recruiters in their work.
In particular, they allow you to :
1. Facilitate sourcing
Identifying and pre-selecting candidates takes time, which recruiters sometimes (“all the time”) lack.
To save time and increase efficiency, he can then call on artificial intelligence to set up “autonomous sourcing”.
Predictive recruiting software makes this possible.
In concrete terms, predictive recruiting software identifies and analyzes thousands of CVs contained in databases (such as LinkedIn).
They then select the profiles they consider to be of real interest to the company.
These software programs use filtering algorithms. Most often, these are “common trends” identified among “successful” employees (previous jobs held, qualifications obtained…).
E.g.: HireSweet, a developer recruitment start-up, uses artificial intelligence to scan the Web for profiles to submit to companies. It compares the information collected to reconstruct a person’s history. This in turn enables it to find profiles that match companies’ expectations.
NB: Apart from AI, there are other methods for improving the sourcing of relevant candidates, including cooptation. Tech RH, on BFMTV, devoted a program to this sourcing method with experts including Mathilde Le COZ, HR Director France at Mazars and President of Lab RH, and Antoine Perruchot, CEO of Keycoopt System , a digital cooptation solution.
2. Identify the right talent for the job/company
When a recruiter receives a large number of CVs, it can be complicated, if not impossible, to sort them all by hand. In such cases, automation can be a relevant solution!
In fact, according to a study by the Harvard Business Review, a recruiter who follows an algorithm, rather than his or her instinct, to recruit would increase the chances of choosing the right candidate by 25%. Here are just a few of the solutions available in this field:
Algorithms or matching tools to sort CVs (written, video) and candidate profiles
This stage, which follows the sourcing stage, allows us to go a step further and calculate, from among the pre-selected CVs, those that most closely match an advertisement on the basis of keywords relating to the candidate’s skills, personality, interests, etc.
Some algorithms are even capable of “calculating” a candidate’s fit with the company’s culture.
Chatbots or conversational agents
These software programs, programmed to simulate a natural language conversation, offer an analysis of the candidates with whom they “chat” online. Chatbots can be used to make a 1st detection of potential candidates for a given position.
Ex: Randstad (HR consulting company) uses the chatbot “Randy”. Randy relies on written exchanges with candidates to deduce and calculate the “match rate” between profiles and job offers.
3. Managing internal mobility
Human resources departments often possess information about employees’ skills, assets and aspirations. But they don’t always know how to put this information to good use, especially when it comes to identifying employees who are keen to move internally, and who would make good internal candidates with the right skills or the necessary potential.
AI can help recruiters in this respect. Software solutions, many of them based on matching systems, use algorithms to match profiles with specific skills and aspirations for internal mobility, with vacancies to be filled and skills required internally.
E.g.: our Keycoopt System solution features an algorithm that enables companies to automatically send the right advertisements to the right employees internally (so that they apply or recommend their network).
Recruiter: a profession that is above all human
While AI provides real support to recruiters in the exercise of their profession, it remains a support and does not supplant the recruiting profession itself.
A recentHarvard Business School study (2021) conducted in the USA, UK and Germany among 8,000 jobseekers and nearly 3,000 managers, blames overly rigid automatic filters for the mass exclusion of ” atypical” CVs .
27 million CVs rejected in the USA (idem in UK and Germany) by software due to filters that automatically exclude CVs with too many part-time jobs, long-term unemployment or those requiring specific accommodations.
Another example: Amazon stopped using predictive recruitment software when it realized it was discriminating against women. Why was this? The keywords studied were used more by men. Men were also more likely to send their CVs to the company.
Some side effects
Thus, these AI-based tools are not free of “side effects” and risks such as:
- Cloning (AI that recruits similar people, without any diversity).
- Discrimination (Artificial Intelligence that discriminates, voluntarily or not, between candidates according to gender, ethnicity, qualifications, etc.).
- Biased predictions: unreliable predictions in terms of recruitment (AI based on biased data without the company noticing).
- Missing out on candidates’ SoftSkills (AI can detect skills and diplomas, but not candidates’ soft skills).
Finally, artificial intelligence is an asset for recruiters, not a replacement!
Given the current limits of AI, recruiters need not worry about the rise of new technologies. They may make his job easier, but they won’t replace it.
These will remain tools or means (which is what they were designed for in the first place).
Quite simply, because a large proportion of HR actions require 2 qualities that are inherent to recruitment professionals: intuition and emotion. Their added value also lies in the fact that they don’t simply rely on hunches, but “dig deeper” and talk to the candidate.
Unlike robots or algorithms, recruiters are able to detect a candidate’s personality, potential, interpersonal skills and so on. In the end, this is essential to the smooth running of a company, which relies on interpersonal relations and interactions…
The recruiter remains and will remain an important figure, a guarantor of values, to ensure that thecandidate experience is the best possible. In this particular case, the recruiter’s role is to ensure that the technologies used to recruit remain ethical, and that all candidates benefit from a truly equal opportunity. Despite certain biases and limitations, it would be a shame to miss out on the potential of AI in recruitment.
What do you think?
[1] According to a study by Robert Walters.
[2] Artificial intelligence technology enabling computers to learn without having been explicitly programmed to do so.