How do you balance recruiting automation with personalization?

A utiliza??o da IA no recrutamento foi uma das coisas mais inteligente que inventaram, além de poupar tempo dos profissionais de recrutamento, através do IA, conseguimos fazer a sele??o de milhares de currículos em pouco tempo, agilizando assim nos processos, sobrando tempo para dedicar a entrevista com os candidatos.

For Talent Acquisition to be able to add value to the business, we need to free their capacity by automating the NVA (non-value adding) activities. During my career, I've rolled out several automation platform to do just that. From automated scheduling technologies that allows candidate self-scheduling and eliminating the back and forth to AI sourcing and screening that doesn't screen out candidates on recruiters behalf but rather prioritize them based on the job requirements and giving the recruiter the final call on whom to move forward with based on their understanding for the role. These automation tools had a significant impact, saving my team hundreds of hours of admin activities.

Because recruiting is seen as a numbers game, I add a personal touch to my outreach. I create outreach templates that are concise, personalized to the candidates and still talk about the opportunity in a impactful way. First, my templates will name the company they're currently at and reference their "sales, marketing, engineering" background or seniority. Wala, it looks personalized! The key is in how you run your boolean searches. Run it for candidates at the same company with similar background (all Managers or Senior Engineers, Marketing Managers, etc).

It's all about balance. Using automation can help streamline tasks, make you more efficient, thus getting more done with less. At the same time - people want to work with people - especially when it comes to job applications. The more trust you build with the personal applicant, the more likely you'll be able to close them upon offer. So find the balance between both automation and personalization and watch your close rates soar.

Automation via chatbots can be used to answer objective questions of candidates during recruitment process but when it comes to subjective perspectives, human interaction will be appreciated by candidates. The candidate experience can be enriched with a combination of both automation and human touch .

I always find offering a podcast slot to the hiring manager and inviting the candidates on is one of the best methods. Interviews are nerve racking as they are, so why not get the hiring manager connected with the candidate prior. This gives people a real life perspective of what to expect, like challenges, enviroment and puts a face to a name. This would actually build someone's confidence who is not that confident in interviews.

As I explore new job opportunities, I've come across a cool trend – many applications now have a spot to enter your preferred name. It's all about respect and recognition! Using someone's preferred name and pronouns is a simple yet powerful way to show that you value their identity. It's also super easy to automate - Take Outlook for example, you can create email templates with merge tags or placeholders for the recipient's name and pronouns.

personalisation with AI still sounds a lot like a robot and people can see through it, so it's not good to use for feedback, for example. The key thing automation allows us to do from a personalisation perspective is looking at it through a marketing lense, where it allows talent teams to bucket talent based on personas, and send targeted messages through recruitment marketing campaigns and sourcing campaigns.

Automating candidate communication is a powerful tool, but it's crucial to maintain a personal touch. Tailoring messages to each candidate's profile and preferences is key. For instance, acknowledging their achievements or offering constructive feedback shows genuine interest. Automation also enables effective segmentation for targeted content, like webinars or newsletters, enhancing candidate engagement. Striking the right balance between automation and personalization elevates the recruitment experience for both candidates and hiring teams.

Do bear in mind though that personal interactions are not one-size-fits-all. Many highly capable and qualified neurodiverse candidates may struggle with eye contact or require other adjustments to navigate the recruitment process. The stats sadly reflect this.

It is important to build rapport with candidates. They tend to open up and show more of themselves if they feel comfortable with you. It also helps candidates feel like you care enough to spend time with them in person, on Zoom, on the phone, etc. Technology is great to help streamline some of the pieces, but the human touch is critical in hiring top talent.

One of the biggest challenges with AI in recruitment is the ease by which candidates are dismissed. Pre-pandemic the recruiters would spend 8 seconds on average per resume. This has now been reduced even further. The best way to increase human interaction is by automating processes or tasks that exist outside of recruiting. Using tools for note-taking, for instance, can free critical time to connect more deeply. Recruiters need to take the time and log where the bulk of their time goes, and work to create a solution for anything that can be done without their intervention. This is critical to ensure the candidate statistics do not get perpetually worse.

Human interaction and the ability to be a high-touch recruiter or search consultant is going to be a massive differentiator. (/already is!) AI is cool and has it's place. Absolutely. But, if you get caught up in with the tech toys, you're not going to win long term. Recruitment is based on relationships - deep, meaningful ones at that. Competition is fierce out there; last thing you want is to be caught being transactive instead of consultative. Candidates are inundated with reach outs from recruiters, so you really need to build trust and loyalty which can only come from consultative, high-touch interactions.

Absolutely. While automation streamlines many aspects of recruitment, it's crucial to remember its limitations. Human interaction remains irreplaceable for critical stages like assessing soft skills and cultural fit. This is where you can truly demonstrate your employer brand and address candidates' queries. Video calls, phone conversations, or face-to-face meetings add a personal touch. Social media, referrals, and events can also foster more meaningful connections with candidates. A balanced approach optimizes the recruitment process.

Before they are able to evaluate the ROI of any new technology, recruitment leaders should ensure that the right levels of adoption within their team for this new tech is realized. For example, when we launched a sourcing and screening automation AI platform back in 2018, the adoption rate by our US team was less than 40%, we couldn't confirm the ROI, and hence we couldn't confidently expand globally. After few months of educating on the value, push for the utilization of the platform, work with the vendor on some additional features, we managed to reap the return of our investment and see the efficiency it brought to our TA operations, which helped us building the case for expanding to LatAm, India, and the Middle East.

Absolutely. Continuous evaluation is key to refining your recruitment approach. Monitoring metrics like candidate satisfaction, response rates, and conversion rates gives you valuable insights. It helps ensure your automation and personalization efforts align with your goals, be it improving hires' quality or expediting the hiring process. Collecting feedback from candidates, hiring managers, and recruiters further unveils areas for enhancement. This data-driven approach keeps your recruitment strategies agile and effective.

Recruitment Process Automations (RPA) can add significant value to ones' team, from removing NVA work, free capacity to partner with the business on more strategic work, to customizing and personalizing the experience of candidates as they navigate the recruitment process. RPA tools, will not replace TA teams but rather compelement them by making them more efficient, more productive, and above all, more valuable strategic partner.

The 3 keys to automation in recruitment are relevancy, simplicity, and task choice: 1) Relevancy- put yourself in the shoes of the candidate. No one minds getting automated outreach or feedback if it is relevant and useful. But if it isn't, then stop. 2) Simplify your process as much as possible. Stop doing things that bear very little fruit. 3) From what remains, automate the niches that can be kept relevant and useful, while making sure that people are making the value judgments.