IN BRIEF:
• Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the recruitment landscape, offering solutions to enhance efficiency, reduce bias, and improve candidate experiences.
• AI-driven tools are aiding predictive hiring, administrative task reduction, and strategic decision-making, but challenges such as maintaining the human touch and ensuring quality remain.
• As AI continues to evolve, recruiters must balance technology with human-centric approaches to talent acquisition.
The recruitment process has always been a critical aspect of organizational success, serving as the means to acquiring the talent that drives innovation and growth. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), the talent acquisition landscape is undergoing a fundamental transformation. This article explores how AI is revolutionizing recruitment, the benefits and challenges it presents, as well as the strategies for striking the right balance between technology and human interaction.
RECALIBRATING THE HIRING PROCESS
The pandemic has led to more companies using advanced HR technology to find and keep valuable employees. Because hiring the right talent is crucial for the success of any organization, this has increased the use of automated hiring tools to make better hiring decisions. These tools use AI to look at candidates more deeply than just their resumes, considering their potential for innovation and other important qualities, which helps to avoid bias and makes hiring more efficient.
AI in hiring doesn’t just make things more efficient; it also changes how companies plan for their future workforce. With AI, companies can predict what skills they will need and address any shortages by hiring or training people in advance. AI can look at job candidates from all over the world, helping companies find a diverse range of employees and create teams that are more innovative and successful in a global business setting. AI also helps make hiring fairer by reducing bias, leading to a more diverse and inclusive workplace.
Digital hiring solutions could revolutionize the way organizations identify, assess, and recommend candidates. By analyzing talent data, AI can build predictive profiles that align with the company’s cultural context and can look at data to predict which candidates will fit the company’s culture well, which could result in longer tenures and better performance.
LEVERAGING AI FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS
AI-powered digital accelerators are dynamic tools that continuously improve themselves by updating and adjusting their algorithms. This ensures they stay effective over time. These technologies can be smoothly incorporated into a company’s overall management system, which helps the company look at hiring as part of the big picture. They make finding candidates faster and help companies make smarter hiring choices.
AI IN TALENT ACQUISITION
AI is changing how companies hire people, but it’s not perfect. Relying too much on AI might mean missing good candidates if the AI doesn’t understand all the details in resumes. People also worry about losing the personal side of hiring, which is about knowing people and how they work together. To fix these issues, companies are using both AI and human judgment together. Examples are as follows:
1. Resume Screening with Human Review: AI software initially screens resumes to filter out candidates based on specific criteria such as skills, experience, and education. Recruiters then manually review the shortlisted candidates to consider additional factors that AI might overlook, such as unique experiences or potential for growth.
2. AI-driven Assessments with Human Interviews: Candidates might be asked to complete online assessments powered by AI, which evaluate their skills, personality, and cognitive abilities. The results are then reviewed by hiring managers who conduct personal interviews to get a better sense of the candidate’s soft skills and cultural fit.
3. Chatbots with Recruiter Follow-ups: AI chatbots can engage with candidates for initial data collection and answering FAQs. Recruiters can then follow up with candidates who pass this initial screening for more in-depth conversations and relationship building.
4. Predictive Analytics with Human Decision-making: AI can analyze large datasets to predict which candidates are most likely to succeed in a role. Hiring managers use these insights to inform their decisions but also rely on their professional judgment and experience when making the final call
5. Automated Sourcing with Personalized Outreach: AI tools can identify potential candidates from various sources such as job boards, social media, and professional networks. Recruiters then personally reach out to these candidates to ensure a more human touch in the recruitment process.
6. Video Interviews with AI Analysis and Human Review: Candidates might be asked to record video interviews that AI software analyzes for speech patterns, facial expressions, and body language. Recruiters review these analyses alongside the actual video to make more informed decisions about the candidates.
By integrating AI tools with human expertise, companies can benefit from the efficiency and data-driven insights of AI while still maintaining the critical human elements of intuition, empathy, and complex decision-making that are essential for successful talent acquisition.
Additionally, not all companies can afford to use AI for hiring, especially if they don’t hire often or the jobs are very specialized. To help with this, there are new AI services that let companies pay only when they use them, making AI available to more businesses.
AI’S IMPACT ON FILIPINO RECRUITERS
According to the 2024 Work Trend Index from Microsoft Corp. and LinkedIn, 89% of Filipino leaders think their organization must leverage AI to stay competitive in the global market. The Philippines, like many other countries, has been adopting AI in various aspects of recruitment including 1) Automated resume screening, 2) Use of chatbots for candidate engagement, and 3) AI for candidate sourcing.
The adoption of AI in recruitment and retention in the Philippines reflects a broader global trend towards digital transformation in HR. However, the extent of AI adoption can vary widely among organizations, depending on their size, industry, and resources. It’s also important to note that while AI can significantly enhance HR functions, it is typically used in conjunction with human expertise to ensure that the recruitment and retention processes remain balanced and fair.
STRIKING THE RIGHT BALANCE
AI is fundamentally changing recruitment by providing innovative solutions that enhance efficiency, reduce bias, and improve the overall candidate experience. However, the successful integration of AI in recruitment requires a holistic approach that maintains the human element, ensuring that the technology serves to complement rather than replace the talent that is vital to the acquisition process.
Understanding how AI is reshaping the hiring landscape is crucial for recruiters and chief human resources officers (CHROs) to meet evolving business and employee expectations. As AI and the HR function continue to evolve, organizations must balance traditional competencies like risk and compliance while paving the way for future innovations.
This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional advice where the facts and circumstances warrant. The views and opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of SGV & Co.
Rossana A. Fajardo is the consulting leader of SGV & Co.