10/05/2023Artificial Intelligence

The Role of AI in Your Recruiting Process

In large companies, 15% of recruiters receive more than 50 applications per job opening. In these conditions, the temptation to automate the most tedious tasks is strong. Thus, the implementation of artificial intelligence in the recruitment process is increasingly being discussed within major corporations.

In order to study the interactions between artificial intelligence and human resources, this time from the recruiters' perspective, we will follow the adventures of Léandre: Coraline's recruiter.

From Preparation to Writing the Job Description

Léandre has been working for 5 years in a large company in Lyon specialized in dating applications. Why in a large company and not in a small SME in Loir-et-Cher? Because HR functions are mainly handled by business owners, and there are many applications to manage in metropolitan areas.

As he needs to replace the executive assistant who experienced a burn-out, Léandre finds himself alone in managing the entire hiring process... all while conducting other recruitments in parallel. He has two options:

He can delegate part of the process to a recruitment or temporary work agency. This avoids him a number of time-consuming activities and ensures he recruits specialists for this type of position. Agencies generally have a pool of candidates matching the offers.
He collaborates with a data engineer and the person in need of the executive assistant. The goal is to define the job expectations, quickly draft the job description, and establish the initial selection criteria.

Since this executive assistant needs specific knowledge in the tech industry, Léandre decides not to entrust it to an external person.

Once the job expectations are determined, it's time to write the job ad. Léandre can use the history of job offers managed by an HR software, drawing inspiration from them. He can also turn to ChatGPT, indicating the additional skills expected. As soon as Léandre finishes drafting his ad, he publishes it on his company's website and various recruitment sites.

To automate the writing and distribution of his job ads, he can also use HR software like Taleez. As they have to write various job offers and send them to different recruitment sites, these software solutions have enormous databases (either pre-established by the publisher or designed for the client). In terms of functionality, they generally come with an ATS (Applicants Traffic System), allowing preselection to be initiated.

Preselection of Candidates

This candidate tracking system allows sorting through profiles and preselecting those that appear relevant. For this, many criteria are added by data engineers to find profiles that match the position, company values, and team. Given the abundance of applications received for a single position, nearly 50% of HR professionals turn to ATS to automate repetitive tasks. It's precisely in the matching part (matching compatible profiles with the position) that AI solutions are in high demand.

There are also web scraping applications, such as Data collector. This tool visits public web pages and takes screenshots of the most relevant elements. The purpose of these tools is to analyze the information candidates publicly share on the web.

Recruitment platforms like Indeed, Hellowork, or Randstad have developed ATS so that managers can perform part or even most of the process within their platforms. For example, the algorithm CV Catcher matches candidates with companies while regulating their number for a single offer. Chatbots like Randy can conduct an evaluation equivalent to a first phone interview through games and personality tests.

Interviews

Ultimately, the preselection tool has advised Léandre to choose Coraline for this position. She is then invited to one or several interviews. Léandre can decide to record her (with her consent) so that an AI like Hirevue identifies her soft skills, capabilities, and even her body language, facial emotions, and eye contact. Most of these systems are directly integrated into ATS. Léandre then has a wealth of data to determine if Coraline will be perfect for the job. At this precise moment, the final decision rests entirely with him and the managers. They check if there is a good fit between the employees and the candidate, after many filters have been used to find the company's chosen one.

Are Recruiters Soon to be Replaced by AI?

While AI can theoretically automate much of the recruitment process, HR professionals remain cautious about its use. In fact, only 13% of HR directors use them, and 34% are considering this possibility. These numbers are increasing but remain low for now. Primarily because the solutions are not cost-effective for the companies that have tested them. Since HR professionals and engineers have to monitor the productions and results of the solution's preselections, this contributes to increasing the administrative cost of an employee.

As HR solutions become more widespread, with a potential drop in subscription prices, should we fear the wholesale replacement of recruiters by AI? In practice, recruiters remain cautious about adopting AI in their daily tasks. They closely monitor applications and work on human contact to attract talents that the algorithm might not have detected... due to biases or false positives. So, they continue to intervene at every step of the process and remain mostly available to answer candidates' questions.

Finally, one question remains: considering all the data collected by companies during the recruitment phases, it is essential to question the need to use and retain this information.