Five thoughts on robo-recruiters

I’m fascinated by the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform talent acquisition. In a previous blog post, I talked about the power of AI and machine learning to make light work of mundane but essential recruitment tasks; such as scheduling interviews with candidates. I argued that far from replacing recruiters, as many scare stories would have us believe, AI promises to augment recruiters with new capabilities to improve decision-making while freeing time for more valuable tasks.

Here, I’d like to offer some further thoughts on the trend of AI recruiting. For me, this is such an interesting topic because it’s evolving the whole time and the full consequences of the technology are only beginning to come into focus. There are five things that I think it’s important to keep in mind:

1.     Expectations shouldn’t run ahead of reality. Companies already using AI in recruitment are rightfully proud of their innovations and are communicating their successes widely. I worry that in some cases the marketing around AI is creating expectations that won’t be achievable in the short-term. For large companies like Siemens, we must develop apps in a huge number of languages, meeting a wide variety of cultural and legal obligations. If the user experience is to be perfect, it’s better to move at a pace where you can test your AI bots thoroughly before they’re let out into the ‘wild’. After all: it’s your brand at stake.  

2.     Making mistakes is critical. While it’s important to wait before making chatbots available to candidates, it’s important for recruiters to be proactive. You need to try things and experiment – and if your experiments fail, learn from that failure. This is the only way things are going to move forward and the only way you can help shift the dial on your recruitment practices. It’s also the fun part: who wants to be following the curve on such a cool technology? I’d much rather be leading from the front.

3.     People are ambivalent about bots. Google recently showed how powerful AI bots can be, when its Duplex AI phoned a hairdresser to book an appointment for its human client. However, it’s worth remembering that there was an immediate backlash to Google: people found the demo ‘uncanny’ and even ‘horrifying’ and there were calls that the voice of the AI should be made to sound more like a robot. That said, in some situations people may actually prefer to speak to a bot rather than a person – such as when discussing personal information. Everyone in talent acquisition will need to bear these factors in mind when designing bots and consider carefully when is and isn’t an appropriate time to use the technology.

4.     The impact on businesses will vary. In organisations that mostly require low-skilled workers and where recruiters are little more than ‘middle-men’ connecting the company with workers, I think AI will have a much more disruptive impact. AI can replace simple recruiting tasks with ease and arguably with greater accuracy. However, in companies where talent matters and candidates need to be sourced and evaluated against complex requirements, the recruiter will be as much in demand as ever. AI will help them with the initial task of whittling CVs down and measuring psychometric factors, but the tasks of engaging with top talent and convincing them to work at a specific company will always require human relationships and human skills.

5.     AI is about effectiveness, not efficiency. Yes – AI can deliver efficiency through the automation of processes, but that’s not what it should primarily be about. Talent acquisition processes need to be effective in the selection of the best candidates, so bots need to be effective above all else. That’s why experience and personalisation are everything. You’re not going to win the candidates you need if they’re unhappy with the recruitment process. For me, when the technology is completely convincing you know you’re on to a winner. Recently, a candidate who had arranged a job interview through our AI chatbot bought it a box of chocolates as a thank you – so we knew we’d got the experience exactly right.

AI-enabled chatbots are the future – but there’ll be some lessons to learn along the way. Please leave a comment to share some of your experiences, good or bad, with AI recruitment tools.