Talent acquisition and human resources management is being disrupted by Artificial Intelligence. As we slowly uncover the impact of AI in the workplace, the response seems to be majorly positive. An Adobe study tells us that 89% of the participants are positive about the benefits of bringing robots to work place. In the recruiting world, insightful conversations happen around “AI in HR”. Although discussions usually give out positive vibes, yet recruiting professionals express multiple concerns in the same breath. As a startup working to revolutionize recruitment, we decided to address these concerns.
To exemplify the concerns, we have used conversations from a Twitter chat on “Artificial Intelligence and Recruiting” held on February 22 by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a platform for HR professionals. The discussion was led by subject experts Roy Maurer and Aliah D Wright, and was attended by many recruiting professionals discussing various aspects of Artificial Intelligence in talent acquisition.
The ‘soul’ of recruitment: Human touch
A major fear repeatedly expressed by HR professionals is that the bots would eliminate the ‘human’ from ‘human resources. For any candidate, recruiters become the first point of interaction with their potential employer, where the seeds of employee-employer relationship are sown. A poor experience at this stage can repel the candidate from pursuing the organization and even spread the bad news. Aware of this possibility, recruiters fear that, if automated, bots might make this interaction impersonal leading to undesirable scenarios. Another possibility of backlash is if the candidate is put off after s/he realizes they have been interacting with an automated system and not a human. When relation building takes the wheel of recruitment process, AI systems are viewed with suspicion.
But, how true is this conviction?
What might be probably underestimated is the ability of an AI bot to improve the quality of candidate experience throughout the recruitment process. Any growing company will experience the influx of applications just as they announce they are hiring. Recruiting, one of the many fields being majorly impacted by Artificial Intelligence, has many AI systems to help at each stage; sourcing, resume screening, interview scheduling, and many more. Our contribution to the Recruiting teams of the world is an AI powered recruiting assistant, Alex, who can automate interview scheduling. The benefits that Alex brings to a recruiter’s table are as follows:
- In the absence of Alex, scheduling interviews alone can cost 20% of a recruiter’s work week. Further, data suggests an average resume spends 23% of its total time at interviewing stage
- When Alex handles of the email seesaw with the candidate for scheduling/rescheduling, recruiters gets more time to improve the quality of in-person interaction with the candidate
- When there is a high volume of applications, recruiters fall short of time to reply to each and every concern raised by the candidate. The absence/delay in response can lead to the candidate losing interest in the organization. But, Alex responds to the candidate on the behalf of recruiter, thereby removing the chance of candidate drop. Result? An improvement in hiring efficiency
- Top notch conversational intelligence makes Alex nothing short of a human when interacting with candidates. This means, you can trust Alex with your candidates, while you get hours back to make everything else fall into place
Alex does not displace the soul of Recruiting; instead it makes more room for human interactions by offloading repetitive tasks. Better candidate experience will reflect on the organization’s employer branding and a reduced source-to-hire time will improve the hiring efficiency.
Find out how we helped Context Media Health in high volume interview coordination
Anxiety of AI taking away jobs
Another resounding concern that almost always comes up is the fear of losing our jobs to AI. Every time AI advancements are announced, we also hear of anxieties about an AI catastrophe (which also includes massive unemployment due to automation).
Research by Adobe suggests that about 89% of people are positive about the benefits of automation. More and more reports are coming up which destroy that claim that AI will increase unemployment. In fact, automation is expected to create employment and job-transitions, rather than what is imagined to be some sort of work place coup by AI. Embracing technology has never, in the history of human kind, meant displacing humans. Right from the days of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, we have witnessed how machines can increase the efficiency of work by helping humans work faster and better. The driving force behind innovations for Artificial Intelligence at the work place is much the same; to better the lives of humans.
If AI bots can make you excel in your job, why not give it a try?
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