It is a given fact that recruiters often find themselves trammeled with a huge influx of applications, queries, and other work commitments. In fact, there are various reports that suggest that recruiters are among the most prone corporate workers when it comes to burnout. Nearly 1 in 4 organizations are therefore using automation or Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support HR-related activities, including recruitment and hiring, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. But how is automated recruitment affecting the candidate's experience?
Every step of the hiring process can affect the candidate's experience in a positive or negative way. By automating certain parts of the process, candidates may experience that they're being treated like numbers on a spreadsheet rather than human beings with their own stories to tell. A negative candidate experience can be detrimental to your employer brand. In fact, your candidate experience is one of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs): the Candidate Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is a measure of how likely candidates are to recommend your company to others based on their perceptions about how well you treat them during the hiring process.
However, when automation is implemented in a conscious and ethical way, candidates may actually experience an enhanced hiring experience. Especially when automated recruitment methods are used to create faster and more engaging hiring processes. Automation can, for example, shorten the application process which is one of the most common ways to improve the candidate experience.
Automated recruitment refers to HR-tech tools used to streamline your recruiting processes. Companies are increasingly using recruitment automation software to create more efficient hiring processes and reduce manual tasks that can be done more efficiently by technology. The right software can assist with freeing up recruiters’ time, and empower them with data that facilitates well-informed hiring decisions.
The candidate experience is more than just a certain part of the recruiting process. It's the overall experience that candidates have with your company, from initial outreach to the final hiring decision. In today's labor market, it is not enough to have an efficient candidate experience as applicants are expecting information and feedback throughout the process. This puts a lot of pressure on recruiters to create an engaging and transparent candidate experience.
There are many benefits for recruiters who use HR-tech tools to automate. Here are four ways automation can enhance the hiring process:
By using a recruitment automation system, recruiters can increase productivity and save time by reducing the number of resources required to complete each task. According to a LinkedIn survey from 2021, 67% of hiring managers are utilizing AI for saving time.
AI and automation can help companies automatically filter out unqualified applicants and improve their ability to identify top candidates. This will improve the quality of hire, as the candidates with the "right" competencies can be identified early in the hiring process.
AI can create great candidate experiences with brisk responses and guided instructions throughout the application process. Using AI to screen candidates early on in the recruitment funnel, can help push bias further down the recruitment funnel and thus contribute to a more unbiased and fair experience.
Today, AI is being used by the public sector in many countries. For example in Sweden, where the Gävle Municipality is using more AI technology to ensure security and privacy. They argue that having analog processes makes it challenging to keep track of candidate data and follow GDPR regulations.
The No. 1 issue in using AI for recruitment is to ensure it is being used in a responsible manner and then being able to prove this. Beginning on January 1, 2023, it will be mandatory for organizations in New York City to conduct an annual "bias audit" that will require companies to publicly disclose their hiring metrics. An unchecked algorithm can easily begin to produce bias. For example, if a company limits an AI tool's search parameters to a certain area code, it could unintentionally create a racial disparity, potentially excluding candidates from the hiring pool; employers would need to manually add a layer of information to empower the machine to consider and support ethnic diversity.
Related: The importance of developing responsible software.
Tengai is an innovative AI interview that combines conversational AI and an unbiased recruitment methodology. Tengai’s sole purpose is to automate the screening phase and assist recruiters in making objective assessments. Tengai is proven to:
Even though Tengai has certain human qualities to be relatable, the AI lacks the cognitive ability to judge. By eliminating gut feeling completely, a candidate’s age, sex, appearance, and dialect become irrelevant. And while the goal of a human meeting is to charm one another, Tengai cannot be charmed since she only is measuring competency.
In comparison to a chatbot, Tengai’s conversational AI social behavior makes behavioral realism possible. This is crucial to enhancing the candidate experience. The immersive experience Tengai creates during an interview is one of the things that makes the interview software unique. Some have questioned if Tengai would be as effective as a chatbot but the fact is, being a conversational AI robot is crucial to the immersive candidate experience.