Let’s talk about Artificial Intelligence. Not a great film in my opinion but that is not where I am going with this. Artificial Intelligence, or A.I. for short, is fast becoming part of everyday life.
For those that aren’t familiar with A.I., it is a form of technology that has been developed to create intelligent machines capable of learning as well as being able to think for itself. Cool, right?
We use a variety of A.I. forms for all manner of purposes: from Amazon’s Alexa to software used online that recognises and suggests similar items you may be interested in because of your purchase history.
A.I. in Recruitment
A.I. is undoubtedly becoming a large part of Recruitment. The idea around A.I. being incorporated into recruitment is designed to reduce or remove some of the processes we do as recruiters, processes that we can often spend most of our time doing such as:
Sourcing Candidates
Administrative tasks
Interview Scheduling
Briefing Documentation
Feedback on process
Benefits
I for one am extremely interested in this technology, especially when you consider the time you could save; it will become vital to recruiters in my opinion. Imagine where that time could be reinvested? More time can be given to building relationships with your candidates and focusing on the human element of recruitment. After all, recruitment is a people business.
We know Amazon tested their A.I. software by reading CVs only to find it was providing gender bias results. The hope is to conquer such hurdles & go again, because removing gender, racial or any other bias or stereotypes that are unconsciously made during the recruitment process will only have a positive impact on companies and its people.
Potential
A much-improved hiring process that candidates can access at a time that suits them – notoriously, this is usually outside of the 9 – 5 when businesses don’t have a human presence. Today’s talent want access to information on their terms and at a time that suits them and modern businesses need to be wise and make themselves available for this.
There is also the promise of A.I. being able to provide a higher quality of candidates and engage talent far more effectively. A Recruiter’s reputation would only rise like a rocket if they were finding highly skilled talent at a fast pace, as well as giving that oh so craved personal touch to candidates and clients that we all warm too.
A.I. in Practice
At Marton Recruitment we have trialled A.I. software and put its abilities to the test for identifying & sourcing sought after candidates, pitting it against our very own Samuel. The initial results are interesting resulting in an 80% relevant candidate & skill set versus our own human recruiter – but in 10% of the time! These are solid numbers, but as recruiters, we know… its great finding talent but bringing them to the table can be another story entirely! Therefore, as recruiters, A.I. cannot replace us anytime soon. Phew!
In Summary
There is a fear among some that Artificial Intelligence may replace Recruiters. I think that could not be further from the truth; the human element to Recruitment is vital. As consultants we engage with people, find out about their lives, their aspirations, their motivations and offer them opportunities that can positively affect their lives.
Software cannot engage with a candidate on the level that we can. The introduction of A.I. is only going to improve our resources and abilities and ultimately provide any potential candidate with a much more positive experience on the hiring process. We are irreplaceable. And as Recruiters I think we should all believe that anyway.