Recruitment is a process that organizations embark on to find, and ultimately hire, the best and most suitable candidate for a job opening. A recruitment process is deemed efficient if it is timely and cost-effective. Traditionally, organizations used word of mouth, referrals, hiring agencies and most recently social media for the purpose of recruitment all in the hope of finding the “right fit” for the role and the organization. Getting the combination, of acquiring the right candidate timeously and cost effectively, often results in organizations investing extensively, in money, time and other resources, to get the right fit for the role. This however does not always guarantee the intended results and often results in huge turnovers and thereby additional recruitment costs.
Some of the challenges experienced in recruitment include lack of objectivity in human decisioning, streamlining of the process, inability of recruiters to consume large sums of information and general biases that are often connected to human limitations. To mitigate this a tool that is free of human limitations, and which is designed around large sums of data, would benefit the process of recruitment greatly.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) was previously introduced as a tool for employee retention and later as a tool for employee professional development. Through experiencing AI in these forms, we learnt that AI is a tool that works with large sums of data. AI analyses the data and forms algorithms that have been noted to aid organizations in critical decision making. With recruitment, it is no different. AI can be used as a solution that can alleviate human limitation thereby ensuring that organizations’ recruitment processes are both effective and efficient.
How AI for Hiring Works
AI, in employee hiring, uses a resume scanning software. Through this technology, AI scans resumes for keywords and qualifications that are relevant for the job opening. AI then analyses the data and subsequently ranks candidates based on the best compatibility as per the job requirements. This tool speeds up the process of identifying suitable candidates. The limitation however is that there is a potential of overlooking candidates who may be qualified but have not used the exact keywords or phrases on the resumes.
AI in hiring has virtual assistants or chatbots functionality. Through this functionality, an organization can conduct initial screenings or answer questions from potential candidates. These AI-powered assistants can quickly and efficiently respond to common questions about the job or the organization. The functionality can also schedule interviews and provide additional information to candidates. A caution, however, is that the virtual assistants or chatbots may not be able to fully understand the context or nuance of a question and may not be able to provide personalized responses to individual candidates.
AI can also be used to analyze data from potential candidates during the interview process. The organization can use AI-powered tools to analyze a candidate’s tone of voice, facial expressions, and other nonverbal cues during a video interview to determine their fit for the role. However, while this technology may be able to identify certain patterns or behaviors that are associated with the ideal candidate, it may also be influenced by cultural and individual differences which could lead to biased results.
Building an AI model for recruitment
To build an effective AI hiring model, an organization will typically need a large dataset on the candidates that were previously successful in the various roles in the business – the data will include both soft and hard skills. This data is used to train the AI hiring model to identify patterns and characteristics that are associated with the ideal candidates.
For organizations to build a successful AI hiring model, AI needs comprehensive yet common types of data which includes:
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- Resume data: this includes information on the ideal candidate’s education, work experience, skills, and qualifications.
- Interview data: the data from the transcripts or recordings of the ideal candidates’ interviews, all assessment feedback and any ratings provided by the interviewer.
- Performance data: this data is extracted from the candidate’s job performance, per the candidate’s KPI reviews.
- Demographic data: the data on ideal candidate’s age, gender, race, and other demographic characteristics.
While the above data is recommended for the purpose of building a standard AI hiring model, it is important for organizations to carefully consider the data to include in their respective AI hiring models, as certain types of data may be more relevant to a specific organization and the specific role. Further to that, to ensure that the AI hiring model is accurate and fair, companies may also need to use techniques such as data normalization and feature scaling to ensure that the data is properly balanced and comparable. Lastly, companies may need to use techniques such as cross-validation and testing to ensure that the model is accurate and reliable.
What is Critical to Know about AI for Hiring
AI in hiring has the potential to perpetuate or amplify existing biases. For example, if an organization’s past hiring practices have been biased against certain groups, the data used to train an AI system for hiring may also carry these biases. This can lead to the AI system recommending candidates who are like those that were hired in the past, rather than identifying the best candidates for the role. It is thus important for companies to carefully consider the potential biases in the hiring data to alleviate biases in the AI hiring model.
An AI hiring model may threaten job security for roles that have repetitive tasks such as resume screeners and interviewers. The use of AI can lead to the elimination of these jobs, as the core tasks of these roles can be automated through AI. This is however not a reality at the present because while AI can automate these tasks, it is currently incapable of replacing human decision-making. But this is not a permanent reality and so, it is important for organization’s that are considering AI for hiring to consider the potential impact that this will have on job security and take steps to ensure readiness of the changes that may result from the use of AI in hiring.
It is important for companies to carefully consider the potential risks and ethical implications of using AI in hiring, and to take steps to ensure that it is used in a responsible and transparent manner.AI can Revolutionize Recruitment
Recruitment is a critical function in a business and AI for hiring has the potential to revolutionize this function. AI for hiring can improve the efficiency and objectivity of the process thereby saving the organization time and money while also ensuring that the organization finds the right fit for the role.
