What Changes Artificial Intelligence Can Bring In Recruitment 2020?

With artificial intelligence (AI) redefining the recruitment landscape on a global level, the battle to attract and hire talented individuals is getting fierce. Since there is no dearth of good employment opportunities in the job market, candidates have become more selective than ever. They are mostly interested in working for companies that have a robust employer brand. For this reason, the majority of businesses around the world are abandoning obsolete hiring techniques and perpetually striving to build a strong presence on the internet with the assistance of technologies. Taking the ever-increasing competition for talent into consideration, one cannot deny that opting for software solutions driven by Artificial Intelligence has become an essential prerequisite for turbocharging recruiting efforts in today’s age. From decreasing time-to-hire to enhancing recruitment practices, the use of new-age technologies is proving to be beneficial for organizations of all sizes. The proper implementation of Artificial Intelligence can work wonders for boosting business efficiency and producing desirable results in less time. Here, we will discuss in detail how AI can introduce changes in the recruitment process and help the new breed of HR professionals win the war for top talent.

 

 

Top 5 ways AI can transform recruitment

 

There is no doubt that Artificial Intelligence is gaining more traction with each passing day. Apart from the recruitment industry, AI technologies are being widely used in various other sectors such as IT, healthcare, retail etc., because they help businesses with digital transformation and increase profitability to a great extent. Listed below are the top 5 ways AI can bring changes in the modern talent acquisition scenario in 2020.

 

Automation of manual tasks 

 

Businesses globally are leveraging Artificial Intelligence in different ways to reap the maximum benefits of this new-age technology. AI can be really useful for effectively managing essential business operations and automating tasks that do not require much creativity. By making good use of technologies like big data and machine learning, recruiters can easily supercharge hiring efficiency. It is a known fact that recruiting apt candidates for open job positions in the organization is an uphill task as it requires plenty of effort and resources. But by picking out an artificial intelligence-based recruitment software, talent acquisition professionals can find candidates, analyze skill sets, and perform background checks much faster.

 

Facilitating accurate and catchy job descriptions

 

Contrary to popular belief, manually creating impactful job descriptions is not as easy as it seems. When it comes to formulating a description for a particular job position, HR teams have to cover everything from role responsibilities to educational qualifications and work experience. But the good news is that recruiters no longer have to spend numerous hours creating job descriptions. Artificial Intelligence can facilitate the generation of catchy job descriptions and ensure that they are sufficiently detailed, thereby significantly reducing the workload of recruiters.

 

Smart hiring algorithms can help shortlist prospective job candidates much faster

 

Most experienced hiring managers concur on the fact that making use of data in recruiting is of prime importance. Although manually scrutinizing data can be a difficult and time-consuming task for humans, smart hiring algorithms can do the job quite well. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, human resources personnel can swiftly scan resumes and fetch out the information needed to analyze applicants’ skills to determine whether they are suitable for the advertised job role or not. This way prospective job candidates can be shortlisted for going to the next stage in less time.

 

Streamlining  management of interviews for identifying the best talent

 

Candidates are hired only after they clear all the tests and perform well in multiple rounds of interviews. It is never advisable to hire an applicant just on the basis of one interview because a thorough evaluation of skills, aptitude, and character is extremely important. The best way to go about selecting the right job candidate is to hold a well-structured interview as it will make it easier for you to filter out unsuitable applicants who lack the required qualifications and skill sets. Artificial Intelligence can be useful for streamlining the conduction and management of well-structured job interviews. It can make the recruitment process more efficient and help you choose the best talent for your company from a large pool of applicants.

 

Predictive analytics to make more informed and strategic decisions

 

The increasing usage of predictive analytics in the talent acquisition sphere is one of the latest AI recruitment trends of 2020. The effective utilization of predictive analytics is slowly becoming a top priority for companies as it enables human resources professionals to make more informed and strategic business decisions with ease. The greatest benefit of predictive analysis is that it eliminates biases and human errors from recruitment. By giving a clear picture of the bottlenecks that impair the hiring process, it assists HR managers in developing a better recruiting strategy to ensure that they do not face any major hardships while connecting with skilled applicants. Besides preparing the path for a stronger recruitment process, predictive analytics can also come in handy for effectively assessing the screening sources to determine the best ones. Recruiters can thoroughly study the data gathered over time to facilitate the prediction of future hiring trends so that the necessary steps can be taken beforehand to achieve important organizational goals at the earliest possible time frame.

 

Now that Artificial Intelligence has made its way into the talent acquisition landscape, companies are investing in AI-powered recruitment tools to hire effectively in the current tough labor market. Since most manual business activities can easily be streamlined owing to the advent of technology, it has now become possible for recruiters to complete core operational tasks with the utmost professionalism. The most notable advantage of AI is that it has paved the way for smart hiring tactics and enabled HR teams to perform more efficiently. So, make sure that you shun old recruitment methods and leverage modern-day technologies to step up your recruiting game with minimum effort.

 

How to create a social recruiting strategy

How to Create a Social Recruiting Strategy?

The race to hiring the top talent has become more competitive than ever. Recruiters can’t trust job boards and the career site as their only source of candidates. They need to broaden their recruiting strategy to include more channels and opportunities for making their next hire. These indirect channels sometimes prove more effective means of hiring passive candidates who are normally not active on job boards. Social media is one such indirect medium which has not only simplified communication within our network, but also expanded the reach of any and every business.  Even Talent Acquisition professionals and recruiters can make a huge difference to their hiring outcomes by adopting relevant social media channels in their recruiting strategy. The question remains, how?

What is social recruitment?

Utilizing social media channels for advertising jobs, building CV database and hiring candidates is collectively referred to as social recruiting. Recruiters also use social media to research and identify suitable profiles for critical positions, which may not be looking for jobs actively. This is also called passive recruiting.

Economic prospects are looking optimistic post the 2008 global financial crisis. Businesses are growing rapidly and so is their need for talent. This has transformed recruitment into a highly competitive space where recruiters are using various tools, technologies and techniques instead of just relying on traditional methods. Social media is fast replacing traditional methods as the most effective source of hiring candidates.

Some Social Recruitment Statistics

  • 70 % of hiring managers say social media has helped them successfully find quality hires. (2016)
  • 80% of employers say social media helped them find passive candidates. (2018)
  • 75% of potential candidates are not actively looking for a job change. Social media is the way to reach them.
  • In 2016, 84% of companies were recruiting through social media.
  • 79% of jobseekers are likely to use social media for their job search.
  • 55% of the jobseekers decide to not apply to a job for an employer for which they have read a negative review on social media.

How to Create a Social Media Recruiting Strategy

Figure out the best social recruiting platform for your company

Finding the right talent through social media starts with identifying the channel where your target audience spends most time. If you are an entertainment and media website, chances are you will find your prospective candidates on Facebook or Twitter rather than LinkedIn, because of the media-heavy nature of these social networks. Although LinkedIn is always an important place to start with because of its career specific nature, however in this case you might find passive jobseekers on Facebook consuming your content. In any case there are three most popular social media networks that you should use for social media recruitment:

LinkedIn: LinkedIn tells itself as the network for professionals. It is partly a job board as it advertises jobs from companies, features company pages and provides other recruitment specific features as well. Therefore, recruiting through LinkedIn is a no-brainer. As per data from Social Media Strategies Summit, 92% of recruiters have hired through LinkedIn at least once. It is glaring evidence that LinkedIn remains recruiters’ preferred network to source.

Facebook: If you think Facebook is only for casual conversations and content consumption, you can’t be more mistaken. Data suggests that jobseekers prefer Facebook over LinkedIn for getting hired. 83% of jobseekers are active on Facebook as against 36% active on LinkedIn. Facebook is the world’s largest social network with diversity in age, ethnicity and background. Facebook also provides a very effective targeting system through its paid jobs feature which can help recruiters reach out to rare talent for a particular role.

Twitter: Users on twitter are generally more active than Facebook and LinkedIn, although brevity is the soul of this social network. Using the right hashtags can help you reach out your job opening to potential candidates. Also utilize Twitter lists to connect with passive candidates.

Also Read: How to Improve Talent Acquisition?

 

Do Employer Branding with Social Media

Important reason recruiters should use social media for recruitment is that it provides them an opportunity to build a strong employer brand. The goal of building a commendable employer brand is to attract high-quality talent and social media can play an important role in this process. As per a LinkedIn survey, 75% of candidates research the social media to check a company’s reputation and 69% of them won’t apply to a company with a negative reputation even if they are unemployed.  This makes it imperative for recruiters to put more time, effort and resources into promoting their employer brand on social media.

To establish an active and positive social media presence one needs to think about the brand messaging such as highlighting the most important parts of the company work culture through social media platforms.

Involve your employees while recruiting with social media

Having a strong employer brand automatically will enable you to use your current employees as your biggest advocates. If you allow your employees to share their voice on social media, prospective candidates will have an authentic and an insider view of the existing work culture, values and environment which they want to learn about. Employee advocacy is a recent concept that businesses are still warming to.  However, using employees to spread your message will not only increase the reach but also find an audience that is more willing to listen. Numerous studies show that people trust people rather than brands. This is why employees should be an indispensable part of your social recruitment strategy.

Also Read: Why Employee Referral are the Best Source of Hire?

Measure Results of Social Media Recruiting

To figure out the RoI of your social recruiting efforts it is essential to track all activities undertaken as a part of the strategy. Quality should always be given priority over quantity. Some of the obvious metrics that you would want to track include source of hire, time to hire, referral rates, and cost to hire. Tracking the number of applications submitted through social networks will help you find the reach of the network and the effectiveness of the recruiting strategy. Similarly, if your referral rates are going up, it effectively means your employees are sharing more jobs on social media which is again a sign of social recruiting success.

Use recruiting tools that enable social media recruitment

Instead of working on a standalone social recruiting strategy, a recruiter must make efforts to include it in their existing hiring process seamlessly. Therefore, the tools that are being used for recruitment, such as an Applicant tracking system must also be equipped to enable social recruiting. Features like one click sharing on multiple social media channels, source tracking and tracking referrals coming through social media are a must if you want an accurate picture of your social recruiting efforts.   Therefore, invest in a comprehensive applicant tracking system that not only automates your hiring process but also enables a social media recruiting.

Also Read: Top 5 Recruitment Metrics That Matter

why employee referral is best source of hire

Why Employee Referrals are the Best Source of Hire?

Every organization wants to hire the best talent out there and therefore spends great time and money on advertising jobs on multiple boards to source maximum applicants for a role. But do you know that there is one source which doesn’t require any significant advertising budget and yet returns better quality talent than other sources? Yes, that one source is called Employee Referral. What are the myriad benefits of hiring through employee referrals? Let’s examine.

What are employee referrals?

Employee referrals are the candidates sourced through an internal recruitment drive where current employees of an organization provide potential candidates for a vacancy using their social network. Recruiters sources candidates using their current employees, and in return offers them monetary or other rewards. An employee referral program is used to perform this entire activity.

The Importance of Employee Referrals

The growing talent war has forced organizations to try out innovative ways of sourcing. Today’s job market has given more power to candidates where they can choose and pick roles as per their eligibility and future aspirations. In a talent driven market, recruitment must change, and that involves making it a more personalized and long-term process. Recruiters do not have a magic wand to identify the best talent for any given role, but they certainly can use all the help that is provided. Employee referrals is a way of including the existing employees in an organization to identify and recruit quality talent. For many reasons, employee referrals have proven to be one of the best ways of sourcing.

Employee Referrals Advantages

There are numerous direct and indirect benefits of employee referrals. Here we list the top 5 which make it the best approach to recruitment.

Employee Referrals Increases Retention

Employee referrals are usually more reliable because they already have an idea of the company’s vision, work culture through your employee. Thus, they know what to expect and won’t be left scratching their heads once hired. Being familiar with the environment, the new employee won’t take much time to absorb and adapt to it and would stay longer than other employees.

Employee Referrals Improve Quality of Hire

The quality of talent is always high when hired through an internal recruitment method such as employee referral. The biggest reason is that your employee has already done the initial screening by considering if he is right fit for the job. No employee would put their reputation at stake just for the sake of a small monetary reward. Therefore, they will only be referring candidates once they are sure about their suitability and eligibility of the role. A poor referral reflects badly on the employee also, putting a question over their judgment skills. Most employees are wise enough to understand this and therefore provide only high quality candidates as a referral.

(Also Read: Purpose of Having a Dedicated Employee Referral Program)

Employee Referrals Reduce Cost to Hire

With no expensive advertising on multiple job boards, it is a given that employee referrals will cost you less than other sourcing channels. Plus, as a recruiter you will be saving a lot of productivity in screening the candidates as that’s already been done by the employee. This will also impact the hiring cycle positively, shortening it, which ultimately brings down the hiring costs further.

(Also Read: Top 5 Recruitment Metrics That Matter)

Hire more specialized candidates with employee referrals

When it comes to finding candidates with specific skills, nothing works like employee referrals. Employees have personal communication with their network and that’s how their knowledge about the candidate’s professional skills and capabilities is far greater than that of a normal recruiter. Sometimes, an ATS or any other screening system may miss those specific skills while screening, or the candidate themselves may not put it prominently in their CV. However, since the employee has a personal connection they would surely know about it and would recommend them for that position. Therefore, employee referrals are very helpful while sourcing for hard to fill positions.

 Employee referral Statistics

The data on employee referrals is the biggest reason why they are called the best source of hire. There are plenty of researches that have proved the superiority of employee referrals over other sourcing channels.

 

When we have strong evidences supporting the employee referrals as a recruitment method, it makes sense to invest in it and may be use employee referral software to get optimum results.