Artificial intelligence and hiring: how will AI affect the recruitment process?
Artificial intelligence is expanding into many industries, leading to the automation of some jobs.
According to research, human resources positions are susceptible to the automation of job functions in data collection and data processing.
But that shouldn’t be a frightening revelation. Rather, businesses should look to see how artificial intelligence can streamline employee recruitment and retention, so they can focus on what’s really important: people.
Here are just a few of the ways artificial intelligence could revolutionize the way your company hires new employees:
Finding great candidates
Artificial intelligence in the recruiting process is already well underway. Sites like ZipRecruiter use algorithms to match potential candidates to open positions which can help your business find candidates you might have missed with traditional methods. Furthermore, you can use a chatbot or resume analysis tool to quickly screen candidates and eliminate those that aren’t suitable for the role.
Another benefit to artificial intelligence in the hiring process that you might not have realized is reducing unconscious bias. Everyone falls victim to unconscious biases. These are judgements based on race, age, sex or gender, or other demographic data that happen subconsciously and affect our decision-making.
Research into unconscious biases in hiring shows that people in charge of hiring decisions are much more likely to pick a candidate that looks like them, even if their qualifications are the same as more diverse candidates.
Unconscious bias could be keeping you from hiring the best candidates without even realizing it. By using an artificial intelligence tool to narrow your candidate pool, you could end up with finalists for a position that would have been eliminated unfairly. And research shows that having diverse employees means better business outcomes.
Efficiency
Is there anything more tedious than trying to schedule interviews with dozens of candidates for an open position? Scheduling platforms that use artificial intelligence are just one way to save time (and money) during the hiring process.
Hiring is expensive. The Society of Human Resource Management said in 2016 that the average cost per hire was $4,129. If your business is hiring a lot of new employees, finding a way to cut costs could make a huge difference in your bottom line. By saving man hours on menial, easily automated tasks you’ll spend less on each new hire.
Beyond cost-efficiency, automating recruitment tasks with artificial intelligence can help you reduce the time that positions stay empty. In a tight labor market, jobs can be more difficult to fill. Overall, the average time to hire depends a lot on your industry and can range from 12 days to two months. But one AI platform claims they can reduce the average time to hire by 73%. Even if those results aren’t typical, filling positions more quickly will also save your business money.
Employee retention
The other side of the hiring process is employee retention. If you can retain your employees effectively, you’ll have to spend less time and money on hiring new people. Artificial intelligence can help you retain your employees, and cultivate a great company culture, by analyzing data to find ways to engage individual employees.
“The future is going to be centered on the employee experience and taking engagement down to the individual level. There is no way we can do that on any scale without applying the best that ‘data science’ has to offer,” says Richard Hughes, Senior Vice President at UnitedHealth Group.
While small companies can easily meet with individual employees and get to know them well, large corporations can certainly benefit from a little automated help in understanding what their employees want.
Artificial intelligence can make a huge, positive impact on your hiring process. Research solutions that can help you hire more fairly and efficiently and can help you retain those employees once you have them. For more on artificial intelligence and hiring, check out this blog on the most and least “robot-proof” jobs.