The Snow White Paradox: Recruiters using Technology (Ai)
Adam Caines
Upplft | Fractional CPO | Startup Advisor | FinTech & Payments Advisory | First Believer
A week ago I posed the question "Will Ai replace recruiters in 5 years?".
90 of you responded with a unanimous view that there will be a harmonious world where recruiters and Ai interact, like when Snow White whistled and all those animals cleaned her house (link for reference for the Gen Z's reading).
This was off the back of the AFR Ai Summit where a number of predictions around the use of Ai in recruitment were made, including the title of my poll.
This got me thinking, what does Ai think, so I asked ChatGPT:
While AI and automation have significantly advanced, it's unlikely that AI will completely replace human recruiters within the next five years. Here are some reasons why:
1. Human Judgment and Intuition: Recruiters use their experience and intuition to evaluate cultural fit and candidate potential, which are difficult for AI to fully replicate.
2. Complex Interpersonal Skills: Recruitment involves complex interpersonal skills, such as building relationships, understanding candidate motivations, and negotiating job offers.
3. Candidate Experience: Candidates often prefer interacting with humans, especially for discussing sensitive topics like career goals and salary expectations.
4. Adaptability and Flexibility: Human recruiters can adapt to unexpected situations and tailor their approaches based on the specific context, which is challenging for AI.
5. Ethical and Bias Considerations: While AI can help reduce some biases, it can also perpetuate or introduce new biases. Human oversight is essential to ensure fairness and ethical considerations in the hiring process.
However, AI will increasingly augment the work of recruiters by automating repetitive tasks, analyzing large datasets to identify potential candidates, and providing data-driven insights. This will allow recruiters to focus more on strategic and relationship-building aspects of their roles. In summary, AI will enhance but not entirely replace human recruiters in the near future.
I then challenged if it was against it's programming to state it will replace a human job. It gave a suitably deflective answer to suggest it won't (scary).
Then I let LinkedIN's AI answer:
"AI is transforming recruitment by automating sourcing, reducing bias, and enhancing diversity. It reshapes hiring through predictive analytics and automated resume screening, making processes more efficient and inclusive."
So it's safe to say Ai doesn't know the answer.
So what do YOU know that Ai doesn't?
A quick bit of research suggests that the majority of Fortune 500 companies already use Ai in recruitment, mostly to save costs.
And cost is what this is all about. Everyone (in this phase of the cycle) is trying to reduce their bottom line and we're seeing talent and recruitment taking a hit as companies start to do more themselves, with the classic belief they can do more with less.
So talent and recruitment have to evolve, on both sides of the equation and that ultimately means adopting more technology, in particular Ai.
Now you're not short of tools, just check out the Gartner Recruiting Innovations Bullseye, there's plenty for Ai to help solve. So everyone has more time on their hands, right?
And you could overlay 1000+ companies covering all aspects of this bullseye, so as a recruiter, in the words of the great Jim Bowen, "look at what you could've won".
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What the heck does this mean?
Ultimately it comes down to how recruitment evolves with the use of technology and Ai. The service you provided today isn't as valuable as it was yesterday and value is the key word, it's a simple equation:
Service + Cost = Value
I'm not suggesting the Cost has to change, and we all know the Value (people in jobs), so the Service must evolve.
And this is the Snow White Paradox, to stay relevant and keep your costs to value ratio, you're going to have to embrace Ai, because someone else already is.
Now it's not that technology is new to recruiting, you went from paper and faxes to word and email and from face-to-face to zoom! The shift now is that everyone has access to the same tools and I think recruiters will start to find themselves as part of a bigger ecosystem, feeding talent into a fully automated pipeline driven by Ai. You'll find yourself with more and more logins to client led platforms.
And this has many benefits; transparency, automation, communication BUT be aware that now clients can truly measure output. If you put 3 candidates forward per role, how many get hired, what is the average match percentage of candidates you send, how did they perform in interviews, data and insights is your new frenemy.
So the question for recruiters out there is how do you enhance your own service with Ai? What tools are available, and how can they help you differentiate because your "network" and "we go deep to understand your business" isn't going to be enough anymore.
You're going to need to focus on output and how you get to the best talent quickly and pre-screen, verify or prepare them so you're certain they're a good fit.
Imagine a world where a recruiter reaches out to you via an Ai Avatar that wants to jump on a zoom for 15 minutes and pre-screen you for a role. You get to find out everything about the role and company and you get instant feedback on if you're a good fit and if so you can choose if you want to be put forward. You're then engaging with a chatbot that verifies your skills through a simple conversation and then sent a link for a 30 minute practice Ai Avatar interview which helps you refine your responses, body language and tone of voice.
You're confident you're a good fit, you're prepared and and more importantly, you've not touched your CV or written a Cover Letter (because it's not 1980).
BUT you want to talk to someone, because we're human so along the way you're guided by a recruiter, who now has more time to coach, prepare and mentor candidates.
Because as a recruiter you can focus on the few, not spam the many.
Quality over quantity.
Efficient. Effective. Sourcing.
Lean. Mean. Hunting. Machines with Ai at the core.
Ai won't replace recruiters, it will evolve them. If they embrace it.
At Upplft we're evolving the way companies work with their contingent workforces, from front to back office. Helping clients create a single funnel for talent, working with recruitment partners and elevating the hiring experience for all involved. As a full end-to-end product we provide a hire, manage and pay solution to take the administration, regulatory and compliance burden away and let clients and candidates focus on business outcomes.
Upplft is humanising technology and Ai in Contingent Talent. Read more here.
References:
VP Asia-Pacific @ SmartRecruiters | APAC Expansion, Sales Strategy, Team Leadership
3 个月Great article Adam. AI is an enabler, not a replacer and will be for a long time. AI and automation can handle all of the mundane and repetitive tasks and free up recruiter capacity so they can spend more time on those micro-moments that matter to be truly human. I also believe that AI and Automation rising in the role of a Talent professional will allow Talent pros to upskill and reskill in many areas so they will become more of a human Swiss Army knife in various disciplines so they can have the agility and adaptability to mobilise across a Talent org depending on what the strategic focus or objective at any one time may be. This will impact RPOs and consulting firms significantly but the benefit will be that CFOs and CHROs will be able to have a stable but fluid Talent team that can shape-shift their skill sets nicely.
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3 个月Recruiters that benefit from AI will be the ones using it to help improve the work they do themselves (and what they can deliver for their clients). But most that I've spoken to want it to just do their job for them (like writing a job description from scratch or automating interviews). The former will genuinely start to bill 2x, 3x, maybe 5x more than their colleagues with the same amount of effort. The latter are literally replacing themselves with technology. I do think in time (maybe 10 years, quite a while) we'll see a massive shift in how recruiters make their money though. I'd expect lower fees but capacity to take on far more work, and the death of contingency. I'm also really interested to see if some super savvy (and very niche) agencies start to train in house models for their market, that they can then give access to for a fee - almost like renting the brain of the agency for a month or two. (Again, far off in the future, not now or soon). One thing I'm certain of - if I was interviewing at an agency for a job today, I'd be asking about their attitude toward AI within their business. I think it should be a massive factor in any recruiter looking for an agency job right now.