The battle to attract and retain talent has gained enormous traction over the past couple of years. During this uncertain time that we are all facing, the decrease of unemployment rates is only part of the whole picture. Today’s potential candidates have become much more selective. Increasingly, they are less is focused on remuneration and are gravitating towards companies that have embraced compelling mission statements, and are more focused on their positive contributions to their employer rather than monetary gains. Recruiters are currently feeling the crunch to step up to the plate. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have become an essential part of the recruitment process in enhancing recruiting efforts.

Contextualise the Talent Pool to Expand Strategically

In the past, recruiters have selected candidates from a very limited talent pool. Given the fact that on average, recruiters spend an average of 13 hours per week sourcing candidates for one role, however there are only so many job applications and CV’s that they can sift through. AI’s unparalleled ability to rapidly sift through millions of data points enables recruiters to identify high-potential candidates quickly. With AI, recruiters can tap into a larger talent pool to source potential candidates, including social media platforms, agency databases and online career boards.

One of the most lucrative upshots of incorporating AI into recruitment efforts is the ability to efficiently and effectively identify passive candidates. 70% of the global workforce is comprised of passive candidates. Ignoring or devaluing the potential of this talent pool can cripple recruiting effectiveness. There’s a reason that 98% of talent teams state that passive candidates are an important source of talent—passive candidates are a staggering 120% more likely to make a strong impact.

Former employees and former applicants represent another often overlooked, yet lucrative demographic that can enhance recruiting efforts. Companies are sitting on a gold mine of thousands of CV’s that represent lucrative talent. AI has an ability to sift through a company’s existing database of CV’s and identify former applicants who are qualified for current job vacancies. Because former candidates have already expressed their interest in the employer, the recruiting cycle can be dramatically curtailed. AI-powered tools like Ideal,  help recruiters identify candidates included in a company’s existing CV database to surface candidates that match the qualifications associated with the specific role.

Bias Reduction

The recruitment process has traditionally been laden with bias. Nearly half of applicants’ report having experienced discrimination in the hiring process. Given the fact that companies with diverse workforces perform better financially than their less diverse counterparts.

One of the primary inhibitors of diversity in the recruiting process is the historical emphasis on candidate referrals. Talent acquisition teams rank employee referrals as the most important source of candidates. However, relying on or prioritising employee referrals comes at a cost. Itmanifests in the psychological phenomenon known as the “similarity principle”. We are more likely to like people who share similar backgrounds and beliefs. Therefore, employees are incentivised to refer candidates that are like themselves. This would drastically reduce the diversity of the candidate pool. Especially considering that almost one quarter of companies do not have a diversity hiring initiative in place.

Reducing unconscious and conscious bias in the hiring process should be top-of-mind for recruiters. Fortunately, quality need not come at the price of diversity. AI-powered tools like Textio help companies craft more inclusive job descriptions. Textio’s Augmented Writing Platform, for example, assesses a company’s existing job description and offers suggestions as to how to improve their inclusivity. The Unbiasify Chrome Extension similarly helps recruiters reduce bias. This free extension allows recruiters to toggle off photos and names from various talent pool sites such as LinkedIn to mitigate unconscious bias. The implications of this are compelling.

Increasing Your Engagement

Chatbots have quickly infiltrated businesses. After providing their potential to drastically enhance relationships between consumers and businesses, chatbots foraged into the recruiting domain. This can be seen in the AI recruitment platform Mya. Mya automates up to 75% of the recruiting process by answering candidates’ questions, updating applicants and verifying qualifications throughout the hiring process. Applicants who engage with Mya have been to be more than three times more likely to hear back from a hiring manager or a recruiter.

 However, chatbots are not the only manifestation of AI’s ability to engage candidates. It has the potential to help recruiters personalise employee value propositions (EVPs). The majority have only one version of their EVP that they rely on as part of their recruiting outreach efforts. This won’t appeal to all candidates. With AI, companies can analyse thousands to millions of data points that provide insights on a candidates’ persona and construct compelling personalised EVPs that engage them in new ways.

The retention and hiring of top talent is the lifeblood of all successful companies. AI can be game-changing in terms of empowering recruiters to reach new and more lucrative candidates and engaging with them in unprecedented ways. However, only 56% of candidates believe AI is less biased than human recruiters. AI cannot be adopted in a black-box. The effectiveness of AI-powered recruitment tech should be constantly evaluated. Chatbots should only be used in the initial stages of the recruitment journey and should not be leveraged in the closing stages when authentic human relationships are essential. The human element should never be overlooked.