Recruitment is a struggle for most companies. It is costly, time consuming and requires the right professionals with the required skills, knowledge and tools to manage the application and shortlisting process, that will result in the recruitment of the right candidate for the job. Working with a candidate-centric approach where candidates are practically in the driver’s seat, while companies are pushing to prove they are a good fit for the candidates: this makes the recruitment process all the more challenging as these factors instill the need for agile and accurate decision making systems.
Recruitment is evolving every year, and in turn, so are the recruiters who must adapt to the new realities of the market. Just as is the case with most other industries, the recruitment industry is disrupted by technology. Robotics such as AI, smart chatbots and machine learning are coming into play. These have great potential and enable recruiters to work smarter by utilising time gained from process efficiencies. Such automated processes range from the streamlining and automation of processes, such as candidate sourcing, matching of candidates to jobs, and automated pre-screening amongst others. While such automation is taking the industry by storm, human interaction is not envisaged to be entirely replaced. Instead, these processes are seen to enrich the role of the recruiter as it allows them to invest time in more strategic and value-adding activities.
While it is unlikely that there will ever be a robot that will be able to mimic human capacity completely, one cannot eliminate the fact that we are currently living in a society that is characterised by technology that blurs the lines between physical, biological and digital domains. While robotics in recruitment, if used well, can add a lot of value, recruitment still remains all about relationships. Besides, being on any side of the spectrum, we all know that it is very unlikely for an employer to find a job description that is perfectly reflected in one human being! Additionally, we all have at some point in time – directly or indirectly - experienced the real truth of ‘culture fit’.
A job can also be offered on potential and willingness to learn as well as personality traits that might emerge during the interviewing process with the recruiter. The recruiter’s job is not just a basic matching of requirements and a comparison with the skills that candidates put into their resumes. The value added is rather the provision of professional help, coaching and support provided during a recruitment process and the ability to identify a suitable environment that aligns with the candidate's personality. Similarly, the job of a recruiter is not only to find that one ideal candidate, but also to identify and facilitate the emergence that potential candidates might have but are unable to unlock on their own.
As technology keeps evolving, it shall aid recruiters by taking over the more monotonous tasks, freeing recruiters to focus more on the value-added service. One could argue that it might be pretty hard to believe that we will move into an era where there would not be any human intervention in the recruitment process. A holistic good fit is quite unlikely to be identified by a robot - and could possibly not be welcomed. Think about being offered two similar jobs within different companies, one of which was via an AI interview and the other with a human being. Which would you opt for?
