A New Kind Of Alien: AI And The Hiring Process

Are humans alone in the cosmos? That question has long fascinated scientists and science fiction fans. Now, with the?buzz ?surrounding the U.S. government’s?report ?on flying objects (UAPs, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) sighted by U.S. military pilots, the question arises again: Do aliens exist? I’d like to know as much as anyone else. However, as a job search expert who works every day with complex AI algorithms, I feel certain that if aliens do exist, they will be nothing like the Hollywood versions from?Men In Black?or the MCU.

In a sense, alien life is?already?among us. It’s not green. It’s artificial intelligence. In this article, I’ll explain why we can regard AI as a type of “alien life force” — and in the process, we’ll learn how to solve a common communication problem with the “aliens” that have invaded the hiring process.

UFOs, UAPs And ATS

E.T., phone home? Ziggy Stardust? Not all aliens are depicted in popular culture as green or humanoid. In short, they could be robots. More specifically, we could venture to call AI an alien life form.

What does this have to do with job search ? Well, recruitment has been run by robots for some time now. Not humanoid robots, mind you, but ATS, or applicant tracking systems. They’re the software that HR departments use to manage the hiring process. ATS are configured to screen masses of applications, sorting and prioritizing the most promising for handover to a human recruiter. Companies have good reasons for using them:

? ATS narrow down the pool of applications.?Thanks to job search websites and search engines, millions of job listings are at job seekers’ fingertips. Anyone with internet can apply in a matter of clicks. This leads to a flood of applications, sometimes from candidates who aren’t qualified or not a good fit. Inc. has reported that corporate job openings receive?250 applications ?on average, only four to six of which lead to interview offers. Simply by weeding out less-qualified candidates, ATS are attractive to HR and recruitment professionals.

? ATS are faster and cheaper than traditional hiring processes. By narrowing the applicant pool, ATS speed up the hiring process and reduce HR managers’ workloads significantly. The larger the company and the more job openings it has simultaneously, the higher the potential for ATS have to save money and time.

? ATS make compliance easier.?ATS facilitate compliance with the?Internet Applicant Recordkeeping Rule , which allows the U.S. Department of Labor to regulate recruitment through electronic means. Businesses, depending on how large their headcount is, are required to report their employee demographic recruiting information annually. This information is stored in ATS, which greatly eases the reporting process for companies.

With those benefits in mind, we can see how leveraging this technology is particularly efficacious for hiring at scale. ATS are capable not just of sourcing candidates but also of imitating human thought processes. They can store resumes, scan and sort applications based on qualifications, crawl resumes for targeted keywords, track and pick candidates for interviews in a fraction of the time that a human would require. If you told me they could also fly UFOs (or UAPS, if you prefer), I wouldn’t doubt you for a second.

The Search For Out-Of-This-World Talent

The desire to know whether the perfect candidate is out there — and to attract the best talent from wherever it can be sourced — is a core yearning of business leaders. HR executives know that modern recruitment isn’t reactive but proactive. As such, its goal is to bring in ideal candidates. It’s vital to engage candidates and move them smoothly through a recruitment pipeline that uses rich screening and evaluation features to hire that lone star from the edge of the company’s universe that shines brightest.

Addressing Challenges With ATS

Now let’s turn our attention to a frequent source of misunderstanding regarding the “aliens” that are processing your next job application: rejections. Specifically,?applicants often get rejected ?by employers even though they fulfill the qualifications for the job.

Now that we know that hiring companies are likely to be using ATS and ATS are more like aliens than humans, we can extrapolate and learn how to communicate with these “extraterrestrials” more effectively. After all, all those sci-fi movies have shown us how important good communication is when negotiating with invading aliens. Whole galaxies can be annihilated if a word is taken out of context.

For the job applicant, the worst thing that can happen is being rejected by the ATS. Still, the goal for any qualified candidate is to be offered the opportunity to interview — and that means getting their resume past the ATS and into the hands of a human hiring manager. There’s no need to travel to other planets or learn to spot aliens masked in humans like in the?Men In Black?blockbusters. To beat the ATS, you just need to understand the basics of resume formatting. It’s more about what you don’t include in your resume than choosing the exact keywords. Forget the fancy formatting, in other words, and focus on conveying your relevant skills, qualifications and experience for the job.

If you’re the right candidate, the aliens?want?to hire you. You just have to learn how to talk to them without getting your resume rejected — or the planet destroyed.

–Originally published on Forbes