How chatbots help drive online recruitment
The human resources and recruitment functions continue to use automation, chatbots and AI to make the hiring process fairer, more transparent and faster. As more people apply for roles and staff have less time to dedicate to winnowing the hot prospects among a growing pile of resumes or CVs, it is a necessity not a luxury or gimmick. Expect this trend to continue as leading examples show the value that technology brings to the hiring process.
Whatever the office role, most professionals find their day-to-day tasks augmented by some degree of automation. Customer service agents find chatbots dealing with more first-level queries. IT departments are automating all manner of services from password changes to new machine requests, while using automation to teach staff about the perils of malware and phishing. And business leaders receive automatically updated process dashboards offering AI-based advice.
In many enterprises, new hires find their onboarding, training, HR queries and other tasks handled by bots. But, before they’ve even got one foot in the door, candidates are likely to be interviewed by a bot to help speed-up the recruitment process. That’s attracting the attention of the major news channels, such as the UK’s BBC writing tabloid stories like “The computers rejecting your job application", but anyone working in technology will already be familiar with the landscape.
AI and bots have been making their way into recruiting, like other office niches, with a range of high-profile projects driving the more gradual changes across recruitment specialists, human resources teams as well as many global names in careers and hiring.
Recruitment bots support the candidate experience
Sweden’s Tengai was one of the first bots to make waves in the recruitment field, with an actual desktop-based talking robot with an animated face using conversational AI to provide firms with a method to interview and hire, while overcoming the potential biases that panels of interviewers might come with.
On the other side of the world, LeaddMe has developed a Japanese/English chatbot to help conduct interviews and manage the recruiting process, boosting engagement and attracting candidates, while speeding up hiring. Meanwhile, talent recruitment professionals using agencies, headhunters or internal services face the challenge of skills gaps and remote working, and need to find the right person through careful analysis of resumes and balanced questions at interview, something AI and chatbots help with impartially.
Whatever the automation type, college graduates, professionals and anyone with exposure to smart technology is increasingly familiar and comfortable with bots. They are an option as the frontline service for communicating with airlines, banks along with many other agencies People rely on Siri and Alexa for a growing number of tasks, so a recruitment bot is rarely a challenge to most. And, for many, an automated bot can help get over the nerves and stumbles that might impact a face-to-face interview, letting candidates think about their answers.
Whatever your role in hiring or your plans to expand a business, at some point you will come across the opportunity to use a bot. Considering the value they add to the process by time saved and insight gained, while reducing a stack of resumes to a few key high-quality candidates should outweigh any fears about using a bot or AI service, with the whole recruiting sector rapidly normalising their use.
A 2020 Glassdoor post suggests it costs £3,000 ($4,115) and takes over 27 days to hire someone. Bots with their proven ability to speed up the process and let recruiters focus their time on key tasks will help bring those figures down.