Talent Acquisition Doesn't Need Artificial Intelligence, It Needs Intelligent Employers

I recently came across a post on LinkedIn from Odiggo boasting a fully Artificially Intelligent recruiter with some fairly lofty claims about the ability to fully replace human recruiters. The technology doesn't appear to be real (and neither does the company honestly), but it got me thinking about the role of Artificial Intelligence in Talent Acquisition.

I don't believe AI could ever replace human recruiters the way many claim it will be able to do to other professions like truck driving or copywriting, but I do think AI and things that pretend to be AI will continue to have a part in talent acquisition.

In fact, according to SHRM, 80% of companies around the world already claim to use AI in some way for HR purposes. Experts across the Talent Acquisition industry will often cite AI as a way of maximizing efficiency. The idea is that recruiters can offload some of the work that doesn't require a human touch; sourcing, scheduling, and routine communications or touchpoints. This will leave the recruiter more time to work on the important relationship-building piece, ultimately making recruiting less transactional.

"Finding the right person to join your particular organization and its particular situation takes nuance and human experience." Says industry leader David Windely of IQtalent Partners in a piece at Forbes "AI is not yet ready to replace humans in this important process. It can, however, be a useful tool in reducing the time spent on repetitive and mundane tasks that take much of a recruiter’s time."

The language of AI and efficiency in Talent Acquisition is everywhere. Global automated hiring tool Phenom published an AI Recruiting Guide in which it claims "AI can help recruiters make more effective decisions quicker, and free them from humdrum and logistical tasks" a solution geared towards working with "Slimmed-down recruitment teams".?

Start-up staffing titan Jobot is heralded as a "blend [of] proprietary AI technology and experienced recruiting pros". Jim Hegerih, National Account Executive at Bullhorn - one of the top Applicant Tracking Systems - put out a piece promoting the use of vendors who use AI in order to remain competitive, and one of their partners, Staffing Engine, saying it uses AI to build "recruiting acceleration".

It's hard to find a tool, vendor, or leader in the field who isn't making the claim that AI is transforming the nature of recruiting by increasing efficiency and providing access to passive talent. Putting aside the debate over whether or not these technologies would be better referred to as automation rather than artificial intelligence, I often wonder if these technologies are a solution in search of a problem.

This is mainly because I don't believe many of the problems facing talent acquisition professionals today boil down to time. For example, many of the tools that purport to source candidates for a recruiter offer more time to build meaningful relationships with candidates. Yet there are multiple premises baked into this claim. For one, we in the industry often see the relationship between a recruiter and a candidate as a bigger factor in closing the deal than it is. While a good or bad recruiter can be the difference between a candidate accepting or declining a position, often the more important factors are whether the candidate is looking at all, what sort of comp package and environment the prospective employer is offering, and even general things like the economy or labor market. More time in the recruiter's day wouldn't actually fix any of these problems.

This brings us to the second conclusion, that time can somehow activate passive candidates. It is not hard to find candidates, in fact, if you give me any job in the world I can find you a minimum of 10 candidates whose skillset fit the profile. Whether I do this or a robot does this (again putting aside AI's ability to do this, something I have serious doubts about) will do nothing to guarantee these 10 candidates will be interested in the job - or in any job for that matter. Nor will giving me an unending timeline with which to pursue them. More time could be helpful, it is not necessarily the answer.

Finally, the last issue I have with the efficiency model delivered by AI is that assumes that recruiters do not pursue relational recruiting because they don't have time without interrogating the reasons that might be the case. The AI-delivered efficiency operates in the same model of Just In Time Recruiting that forces recruiters to work with candidates at a transactional level. It does nothing to challenge metrics designed for volume of fills or hiring managers with flexible needs, which are more often the reason for recruiters taking the short-term approach to talent acquisition. So at best we're talking about a technology that can let you spend more time playing the "numbers game".

I would love the recruiting industry and the various leaders in the field to spend less time talking about advanced technological fixes and more time talking about the tools we know bring in candidates; employers with competitive, human-focused benefits and compensation packages, empowered recruiters who aren't working within the confines of transactional, volume-based metrics, and narrative style employer branding that centers candidate experience as well as company culture.