Three ways AI can help find your next best hire

Finding the right candidate to join your business is rarely an easy job. It’s labor intensive, costly, and is usually fraught with fierce competition from others wanting to nab the same talent.

Because of this, an increasing number of companies are looking to innovative technologies to help make the recruitment process more efficient. And a technology that is really picking up speed in the recruitment space recently is artificial intelligence (AI).

According to Gartner, the business value of AI is projected to reach US$1.2 trillion this year and in the US alone, major investments in the future of AI are happening left, right and center.

When it comes to AI’s role in recruiting, 63 percent of global HR professionals said that the technology has already changed their headhunting approach, and according to Jobvite, almost 50 percent of recruiters are feeling positive about the technology.

Let’s look at a few examples of AI trends which have fuelled interest in the recruitment space:

# 1 | Creating the perfect job ad

It’s fair to say the internet is saturated with job advertisements.

Over 20,000 companies in the US alone are using LinkedIn in their recruitment process. And with over 15 million active job listings on the platform in 2018, it’s clear that standing out from the sea of competition is paramount.

Though this step is often overlooked, a job advertisement is where the applicant’s journey begins.

Fortunately, AI is now allowing companies to create and post more powerful job ads than ever.

A variety of AI-powered tools are available today that help recruiters perfect the writing of job ads. Textio, for instance, is an augmented writing tool that uses an algorithm that ingests 10 million job openings per month.

The software searches and analyzes language patterns and rates against criteria such as the number of applicants a job gets and the percentage who qualified to get an interview.

Using natural language processing (NLP), the algorithms can suggest alternative phrases based on most successful job descriptions. For instance, replacing ‘focused on’ with ‘passionate about’.

# 2 | Sourcing new staff

Sourcing candidates for a role can be made a whole lot easier with AI. Automated sourcing locates candidates online that fit the requirements of your role, reducing the friction associated with the recruitment process.

This works by AI-powered software such as Fetcher which can scan job descriptions for the role. From this, algorithms will gather and suggest potential hires based on matching skills.

While referrals prove to be the number one recruitment source, AI will be capable of collecting data from thousands of candidates to identify the ideal fit. Not only will this vastly improve the quality of candidates in your pipeline, but it will save you bucket-loads of time.

# 3 | Finding passive candidates

When sourcing the best available talent in your industry, top candidates are rarely the ones who are actively looking for new employment options. In fact, recent research suggests that 95 percent of the people employers are wanting to hire are not even looking for new jobs.

Reaching these passive candidates can often be a challenge that involves a lot of time, money, and manpower. Fortunately, AI is proving to be the secret ingredient to engaging with this group.

For instance, programmatic recruitment can take human error and guesswork out of sourcing potential hires who might be receptive to your job ads.

Using AI, ads can be placed where they are likely to best perform based on algorithms and data science. This will ensure it will reach the right eyes of potential candidates who may want to explore the ad further.

Social media platforms should be the main target for attracting passive candidates since this is where 90 percent of millennials are active daily. On sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook, you can leverage AI to place ads that target an audience based on their profile data, location, and interests.

AI can also monitor data such as how long the passive candidate has been in their current position and whether they have been promoted in this time. Armed with valuable data like this, companies can create a list of candidates who are likely to engage with a new job opportunity and would fit well in their organization.

With the ever-rising competition for talent, forward-thinking recruitment professionals must understand that resistance to leveraging the power of AI-powered tools will only put them at a disadvantage.

By educating themselves on how AI can improve workflow and keep them current within the recruiting field, they will be sure to be ahead of the race for the very best hires.