The ever-evolving world of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the hiring process, bringing new opportunities – and new challenges – for recruiters and HR professionals.
There is no doubt that AI will change how the world works. A recent report from Goldman Sachs predicts that roughly two-thirds of current jobs could be changed by AI automation, eventually replacing up to a quarter of everyday work tasks.
At the same time, the report concluded that AI could introduce a range of new opportunities with a subsequent rise in productivity that could raise the global GDP by 7%.
Already, AI is being relied on as a useful JobTech solution, with research from IBM suggesting that 45% of businesses globally are using AI to improve recruiting and HR.
Whether your business has already introduced machine learning into the recruitment process or if you’re considering it, understanding the pros and cons of this approach will lead to better problem-solving and an efficient hiring process.
There is no doubt about it AI capabilities can speed up hiring and support employers to source relevant talent. Some examples of how AI is already being used by talent acquisition professionals and hiring platforms include:
* Creating job descriptions
* Talent sourcing
* Skills mapping
* Job matching
* CV screening
* Chatbots
* Video interviewing
* Candidate assessment
* Predictive algorithms and analytics
Benefits of AI in Recruitment
The key benefits of incorporating AI technology into your recruitment process include
1. Saves time and reduces workload
The ability to complete tasks using AI reduces the workload for recruiters, meaning more time can be spent on the areas that require human input.
Hiring tools such as video recruiting software increasingly include AI-powered assessment capabilities. For example, recruiters can set up candidate screening interviews where AI can analyse and score interviewee responses.
Other tools review and screen swathes of applications, so recruiters don’t have to manually check through every CV they receive. AI can be trained to discount CVs that don’t reference relevant skills or experience.
A newer development in AI is ChatGPT. This language model has been heralded as a game-changer and has a myriad of uses. The tool is still being refined, but users can converse with it by asking questions, sourcing information, or feeding in instructions using text-based inputs.
ChatGPT has a lot of potential to speed up hiring. HR professionals and recruiters have already been using it to write job descriptions. ChatGPT can generate relatively accurate, structured job specs, although these can lack the creative flair that can make an employer’s offering stand out in today’s competitive job market.
2. Cost-effective
While implementing AI in the recruitment process requires time and budget, in the long term, many HR experts and recruiters consider it to be a cost-effective solution, thanks to the potential to automate a range of time-consuming or admin-heavy processes. This means a more streamlined recruitment process, which is a plus for the hirer and candidate.
3. Better candidate experience
With AI often being introduced as an efficiency measure, it’s no surprise that it can enhance the candidate experience.
This may include chatbots powered by machine learning that can be available at any time to answer candidate questions, whether that’s helping them to schedule an interview or signposting them to learning platforms as part of onboarding.
AI can also help to close the feedback loop. Recruiters often don’t have the time to share in-depth feedback with candidates, but by using AI as an assessment tool, automated yet tailored feedback can be shared with every applicant. They’ll then be more likely to have a positive perception of the employer and re-apply in the future.
4. Better candidate matching
AI-backed tools can offer in-depth analysis and assessment of a candidate’s skill set, experience and qualifications against the language used in a job description. This means relevant matches are made in a data-driven and efficient way.
5. Reduced bias and more diverse talent pools
AI tools can be used to strip CVs of any identifying personal data and can even assess the facial expressions, tone of voice and responses of candidates as they answer questions during an interview.
These kinds of technological developments have the potential to unlock more equitable hiring. A recent study from the London School of Economics suggests that AI reduces unconscious bias in the recruitment process, as it enables more objective decision-making. The same study points to AI’s ability to source from more diverse talent pools.
However, the effectiveness of AI in eliminating bias continues to be hotly contested in academic circles, and other studies report very different results.
Challenges of AI in Recruitment
AI is not a perfect solution; many of the benefits laid out above can be countered with other research or anecdotal evidence. Some challenges of using AI in recruitment include:
1. Transparency and accountability
With new technology emerging all the time, candidates may feel unsure about AI’s role in job targeting or the assessment of applications and interviews. To tackle these doubts, employers must be confident in the tools they’re using in their recruitment processes and hold themselves (and their tech) accountable. The more transparency that is shared about the intricacies of the hiring process, the more trust employers can build to overcome this challenge
2. Regulation and ethical concerns
Regulating the use of AI is complex, and there aren’t all-encompassing laws in place yet that can effectively protect users of AI and ensure its usage is always appropriate and fair.
With this, data privacy and security are concerns for employers and candidates alike. There are also wider ethical arguments surrounding the drawbacks of AI technology in recruitment, including its overall accuracy in candidate assessment and its role in perpetuating discrimination.
3. Impersonal recruitment due to lack of human interaction
If hiring processes rely too much on AI, it can feel impersonal for candidates, impacting the overall candidate experience.
There could be less opportunity for candidates to learn about the company culture and get a real feel for the team if there’s a lack of human interaction.
There can also be a tendency for candidates to be forced to input the same application information multiple times as a result of automated AI prompts, which may lead to candidate disengagement at a time when hiring is challenging.
4. Relevant candidates risk being overlooked
Recruiters should be wary of becoming reliant on technology and use their expertise to analyse the recommendations of AI, in particular in the context of screening candidates or assessing personality traits.
The way AI learns can lead it to make assumptions, excluding suitable candidates because of a limited understanding of certain contexts or cultural references. For example, AI may automatically screen out a CV that doesn’t include mention of experience within a certain sector – but if a recruiter were to review this, they may find a range of transferable skills that would make that candidate ideal for the job.
5. Bias can be built-in
While the research by the London School of Economics concluded that AI leads to more objectivity in the hiring process, other evidence suggests that, just like humans, AI falls foul of unconscious bias and stereotyping – and has even been shown to be discriminatory.
Research from Cambridge University suggests that AI does not reduce bias or boost the diversity of talent pools. It outlines that AI video assessments, in particular, are in the early stages of development. There are considerable limitations when it comes to how accurately AI can draw conclusions from a candidate’s facial expressions or body language.
If the data feeding the AI is biased or incomplete, then inevitably, AI carries inherent bias. This is why it’s crucial for recruiters never to make decisions solely based on the recommendations of AI.
Conclusion
AI will continue to change recruitment and the wider world of work. This technology undoubtedly enhances existing hiring processes but must be used by recruiters and HR teams judiciously to help inform and guide their decision-making. Businesses must remember to hold their hiring decisions to account, especially when AI-assisted technology is still being refined.