How AI And Automation Are Evolving Talent Acquisition Roles

Technology plays a critical role as recruiters and companies look for ways to thrive in today’s economy

The needle is moving for talent acquisition as teams are operating leaner while simultaneously expected to do more than ever. While many of the changes in TA right now are being attributed to economic uncertainty, these changes are a bit different from three years ago, as teams scrambled to stay afloat in the early days of the pandemic. Rather, companies are looking for increased ways to keep every area of their business as lean and productive as possible – talent acquisition is no exception.
 

Particularly for recruiters, there is tremendous opportunity right now to maximize efficiency while enhancing productivity. As noted, their roles are shifting, and not simply because of a drive for efficiency or economic uncertainty. Rather, candidate expectations have permanently changed. Today, recruiters are expected to do fewer of those “traditional” tasks that tend to be manual or administrative. Rather, the focus is on high-impact work, like “selling” roles to job seekers, answering questions and alleviating concerns, focusing on closing candidates quickly, and more.

Technology plays a critical role as recruiters and companies look for ways to thrive in today’s economy. We do not know how the current economic situation will play out. But, we do know that companies wanting to thrive on the other side of it need to acknowledge evolving roles and invest in ways to keep their TA teams at their most productive.

Why AI and Automation Have Reached such an Impactful Point for TA Right Now

Improved technology

Of course, the most obvious reason that AI and automation are having such a powerful impact on talent acquisition teams is that technology has simply advanced and become more sophisticated. Platforms like ChatGPT and Google-backed Anthropic have suddenly taken over many HR headlines, and showcase there is so much potential for TA teams to leverage these powerful technologies.

Aside from the headline-grabbing technology, real-world talent acquisition tools like job matching and recruiting chatbots are currently being used by top organizations across the globe to deliver better candidate and recruiter experiences at scale.

Economic uncertainty

But while incredible advances in technology receive much of the attention (and rightfully so - it has progressed tremendously in the past several years), the economy also plays a large role in opening doors for AI and automation within talent acquisition.

TA teams are more open to leveraging AI and automation technologies due to increasing economic uncertainty. Many talent acquisition teams have been reduced to the bare minimum, which means your TA team members are tasked with doing more work than ever.

Although many organizations are subsequently making fewer new hires, the demand for stellar talent experiences is consistent whether your business is hiring for 10 roles or 1,000 roles. And your TA team must be able to deliver consistent experiences regardless of resources or openings.

This means that in addition to operating leaner than in the past few years, your TA team also needs to run at its most efficient. Efficiency and productivity have seemingly never been more important for talent acquisition teams. And to empower their TA teams with what they need to achieve those goals, organizations are equipping them with the right technology to augment human interaction rather than replace it.

Changing talent expectations

The past three years have brought a seismic shift in talent expectations from employers and prospective employers. Talent is increasingly looking to recruiters as career counselors and advocates, rather than stepping stones to a particular job.

What does that look like, exactly? Candidates are looking for recruiters not to help them find a job, but to find the right job within your organization. There are benefits to this for both talent and organizations. For talent, of course, they build stronger relationships with your organization from the first touchpoint, which makes them more likely to accept your job offer, be a productive employee, and even refer more talent to your organization.

For organizations, you are less likely to lose out on silver medalists, the talent who is not a fit for the job they applied to, but would be great in another role. You are getting in front of the “you’re great but not the best fit for this role” instead of finding the right fit from Day 1. And with talent today applying to 12 jobs at a time, on average, the TA teams that can rise to meet this new expectation from talent are the ones most likely to land their most desirable candidates.

How Are AI and Automation Contributing to the Evolution of TA Roles Today?

Back when Sense first launched our B2B platform in 2017, the introduction of automation and AI into the recruiting processes for our early customers was transformative. Automating recruiter communications made nearly instantaneous, dramatic improvements to core metrics like time to hire, cost per hire, NPS, and more.

As I have touched upon, we have come so far in the years since our launch. AI and automation are truly at the forefront, and their impact on talent acquisition is being felt at seismic levels today. The core benefits of AI and automation in those earliest days are still critical fundamentals – database integrity/cleanup, database reactivation, candidate engagement through automated touchpoints, reduced candidate dropoff through automated reminders, and more.

But with today’s AI and automation, talent technology companies are layering on more sophisticated and powerful capabilities that deliver on the talent expectations outlined above, and the increased demands on TA teams. These applications of AI and automation are particularly impactful right now in the evolution of TA:

Chatbot

Chatbots have seen some of the most significant progress in recent years. It is important to note; however, that not all chatbots are created equally. Most of us have had frustrating interactions with customer service and other chatbots.

But today’s most sophisticated recruiting chatbots create natural, seamless experiences for talent and allow your recruiters to be “available” 24/7. This is particularly important in high-demand industries like healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing, where talent isn’t necessarily applying or available between 9 and 5.

Chatbots do so much more than answer questions today. When leveraging the most powerful technology, they can answer questions, help candidates find the best jobs, prescreen, provide insight into company mission and culture FAQs, and even schedule time on your recruiters’ calendars. The combined impact on candidate experience and recruiter productivity is truly transformational. And with our research showing that one in three TA leaders feel their organizations aren’t communicating successfully with talent, leveraging chatbots can lead to dramatic improvements.

Job matching

I mentioned the desire for recruiters to serve more like career counselors, helping candidates find the right jobs within your organization. Powerful AI today is helping your TA team to serve as those career counselors, effectively matching job preferences and professional backgrounds to specific roles within your organization. This technology can be deployed after a candidate applies, suggesting additional roles that may be a fit (which can be combined with automation to send a confirmation email along with those recommendations), it can also be deployed with chatbot to ask questions and match to specific jobs during a “conversation.” We’re just scratching the surface of how this powerful technology can be applied, but it’s transforming candidate experiences and TA roles in exciting ways.

Talent engagement platforms

To date, many talent acquisition technology solutions have been one-off point solutions. They work independently of one another and do an okay job on their own; however, they can be a source of frustration for your team, requiring multiple logins, user experiences, and customer support requests. Their costs can also add up.

Today’s most efficient and productive talent acquisition teams are moving away from duct tape, and point solutions and are embracing robust talent engagement platforms that include chatbots, job matching, and other solutions. Rather than working independently of one another, they work together, with robust functionality and analytics, oftentimes integrating with your ATS. The result is more robust impacts on your core metrics, along with extremely detailed and sophisticated analytics that help you make more informed decisions and seamless candidate experiences. Less time remembering logins, which tool does what, and dealing with multiple customer support teams.

What’s Next?

We are in a game-changing time for talent acquisition teams. Recruiters now have powerful AI assistants at their fingertips, giving them superpowers: The ability to have conversations with hundreds of job seekers at a time, versus a handful (at best), doubled (or better) job seeker selection speed, and so much more. At the same time, your recruiters have also become (or soon will become) AI operators. With no-code recruiting technologies like what I mentioned above, end users (that’s recruiters) can build and launch their own personal AI assistants to be more efficient, engage and find better talent, and more. The power is in the user.

But, it’s essential for organizations to invest in these game-changing technologies now. Whether you’re hiring for 100 roles or 10,000 roles, meeting talent needs now is essential. Adding more talent to your pipeline, and nurturing that talent, remains critical. Giving your recruiting team the technology they need to be most successful is essential to maximizing your resources in the evolving arena of talent acquisition.

Author Bio

Anil Dharni is the Co-founder and CEO of Sense, the leading AI-powered talent engagement and communication platform. Before founding Sense, Anil was co-founder and COO at Funzio, which was acquired by GREE in 2012 for $210M. Prior to Funzio, Anil led product and design at the third-largest Social Networking company, hi5. He is an international speaker and thought leader known for developing the best candidate engagement tools in recruiting. Connect Anil Dharni