Artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning have been dominating the headlines in the recent years and steadily woven into our daily lives. Recruiting is no exception. Identifying and hiring the right talent is critical to the success of every business. It is also one of the toughest challenges businesses face these days since hiring the wrong person is expensive. Recent estimates put the cost to find, hire and onboard one new employee at nearly a quarter of a million dollars – a cost that can increase exponentially if that person turns out to be a bad fit for the role. As a recruiter for over 15 years, I have also seen how the morale and continuity of the business can decline solely due to a wrong hire.

Since adopting applicant tracking systems (ATS), recruiters have relied heavily on technology to make our jobs easier, faster and better. However, when it comes to sourcing candidates, screening resumes efficiently continues to be a huge challenge in talent acquisition since there is automatic elimination of resumes (even the great ones) that the system can’t read and interpret. While these systems mean recruiters no longer have to spend hours at their desk sifting through a pile of resumes, they also increase the chances of recruiters missing out on potential great hires and great pipeline talent.

Utilizing AI in hiring ensures that recruiters can view all the most competitive applicants, no matter the resume format. Resume parsing and candidate filtering have been a part of the ATS software toolbox for a while now, but AI will help to improve the way that these functions work. Instead of the ATS searching for only a specific set of keywords that a qualifying resume must contain and eliminating resumes which don’t contain this specific wording, AI helps the system to understand the concept that the recruiter is looking for so that candidates who have simply used different wording aren’t overlooked. Behavioral and situational interview assessments can also use AI and predictive analytics to capture both quantitative and qualitative data to ensure the right match and prevent possible misjudgment caused by bias and false logic.

More often than not, recruiters, like myself, are caught in a situation where a hiring process has dragged on much longer than originally thought. Unfilled jobs cost money and result in missed business opportunities. Using AI allows hiring managers and talent acquisition teams to combine feedback and input additional data into the algorithm to further refine the search to the exact type of candidates they want or need. This technology can reduce the process from months to days which is a massive shift from the traditional route of sourcing a candidate through job boards, LinkedIn and cold calls, and a benefit to both businesses and candidates.

These advances give recruiters and hiring managers back the time they need to focus on the human side of things – because human interactions are, and will always be, the most critical component to hiring and retaining top employees.

At Avanade, people are at the heart of what we do, and they determine our success and our clients’ success. While sophisticated AI programs can highlight personality traits through statistics, they don’t have the capacity to assess a candidate from a cultural point of view. By meeting a candidate, you get to understand whether they share the same core beliefs that are integral to the business. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to assess if their personality matches the company’s behavioral traits and attitudes within the team. While I feel that AI will continue to shift how we recruit, it will ultimately be a complement to the recruitment process because, as a ‘people-centric’ company, human interaction will always play the most important role.

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