According to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), up to 44 percent of businesses are incorporating AI in IT functions, while a further 19 percent use it to anticipate their customers’ future purchases and present relevant offers. Increasingly, however, companies are beginning to see the benefits of artificial intelligence in recruitment, with 96 percent of senior HR professionals believing AI has the potential to greatly enhance talent acquisition and retention, according to Ideal. Here’s why.
AI can help predict employee success
Bringing the right people onboard is a major part of long-term business success. Employees are your company’s most important asset, so having a talent acquisition strategy in place will give you the foundation for ongoing success
AI has the ability to establish what a successful employee in a specific position has done, and look for candidates with backgrounds that match up with those workers. It can identify certain qualifications, educational history, work experience and other factors that suggest a candidate has the background to emulate the top performers at your organization.
Chris Nicholson, co-founder and CEO of AI firm Skymind, told CIO that “the question everyone’s trying to answer through all the interviews, screenings, tech and coding challenges, is, ‘How can I predict someone’s performance?’”.
Explaining the importance of AI in talent acquisition, he said: “the smartest recruiters and hiring managers would start gathering resumes, performance reviews, work product, any information at all about highly successful people that already work for them and plug that into an algorithm to figure out what you are looking for”. The system can then help distill what hiring managers should be looking for.
boosting candidate engagement through AI
Artificial intelligence in recruitment can significantly improve candidate engagement through improved communication between candidates and employers. According to Mya, a product developed to make recruiting simpler for businesses, its system has averaged “a 9.8 out of ten on overall candidate experience”.
This is because it can provide candidates with updates, feedback and guidance, as well as answer their questions in real-time. This communication - which has a significant impact on candidate experience - is generally lacking, according to the 2017 Talent Board North American Candidate Experience Research Report.
Improving the candidate experience will benefit your organization since 74 percent of those who report having had a positive candidate experience will increase their business relationship with the company so your company could find that offering a better experience can boost its financial position, the Talent Board report found.
AI can make onboarding easier
AI also has a role to play in onboarding new starters. This is particularly relevant when it comes to providing new hires with the information they need to make their working lives easier.
These systems can offer new employees a resource to turn to whenever they have questions. Whether they have queries regarding how to sign up for health insurance or where the conference room is, they just have to turn to the intelligent automated system to get an immediate answer instead of calling or emailing HR. It provides a central point to access the kind of information every new starter will require, reducing confusion and leaving workers less likely to feel overwhelmed.
AI developer Talla has explained the benefits of incorporating AI in the onboarding stage of the talent acquisition process. According to the firm, “an organization needs to provide tools that support new hires throughout the onboarding process”. This lets hiring managers free up time for “connecting with a new hire in more meaningful ways”.
The main benefit of AI in recruitment is that it will save your organization’s HR department time. These hours can then be spent working to solve more complicated issues that require a human’s creativity and, often, emotions - traits AI just can’t copy just yet.
If you would like to learn more about one of the topics discussed in this article--talent acquisition-- download our guide on how to build a winning talent acquisition strategy.