Hiring is experiencing fundamental change across most industries with artificial intelligence leading the way. But it’s not quite so straightforward. Recent research by Tidio shows that 83% of U.S. businesses would like to experiment with AI in more of their recruitment workflows, yet just 28% have full faith in it. Recruiters who can thoughtfully bring AI into hiring will keep their organization ahead, build closer connections with candidates, increase efficiency, and drive better hires.
The Growing Function of AI in Recruitment
In the not-too-distant future, CHROs will be responsible for defining a talent strategy that integrates people and AI agents. AI is already being put to use in certain steps of the hiring processes, but to truly make an impact, it needs to enhance existing systems and solve real problems that talent acquisition teams face. Here’s how AI can make an impact:
Scaling Candidate Outreach: Currently, the majority of companies only interact with about 5% of their job candidates. With AI-based solutions, recruiters can provide an outcome for every candidate, so that they don’t just fill roles faster, but also build a talent pipeline for the future.
Faster First Contact: The sooner a recruiter makes contact with the candidate, the better the experience. With AI, response times are virtually instant, which keeps candidates interested throughout the recruitment process.
Uncovering Bias in Hiring: AI can reveal trends that are hard for humans to spot. For example, a Humanly customer discovered that their recruitment managers spent more time having small talk with job applicants who were local to the area than non-local job applicants. The impact of this was that they had a high measured sentiment towards local candidates meaning they essentially liked them more. By catching such trends, teams can make corrections and improve fairness in hiring.
How AI is Making Hiring Smarter
The benefits of AI extend beyond speed to also enable more informed decision-making. Here’s how AI is helping recruiters enhance their approach:
Better Screening: Instead of keyword matching, AI can screen candidates on experience and skills, preventing potential candidates from being overlooked. It also means the screening can be two-way with candidates screening the company, leading to less candidate drop off and ghosting.
Interview Scheduling Automation: AI programs can arrange interview logistics within minutes, cutting application-to-interview time.
Enhanced Candidate Communication: AI-powered voice and chat assistants update candidates, leading to a better candidate experience and better employer branding.
Reduction of Administrative Burden: AI helps recruiters by freeing them from mundane work such as resume screening and responding to frequent questions. This enables recruiters to dedicate more time to higher-level tasks, including engaging directly with the best talent.
Keeping Humans at the Center of Hiring
One of the concerns that the majority of people have is that AI will render the hiring process impersonal. In reality, AI must be utilized to make the process more personal and engaging.
The best deployments of AI do not replace recruiters, but enable them to focus on high-value work such as building relationships and nuanced decision-making. AI done right gets qualified candidates to humans faster, and updates unqualified candidates on their status right away. There is nothing more impersonal that being ignored.
Transparency is also key. Candidates should always be aware that they are dealing with AI and not a person. Trust underlies any hiring process, and AI needs to build on top of it.
AI is also a valuable tool to drive diversity and inclusion. By helping remove biased language in job descriptions, scheduling interviews more fairly, and grading applicants on facts rather than individual impressions, AI can facilitate more equitable hiring processes.
The Future of AI in Recruitment
With every advancement in artificial intelligence, the role it will play in hiring will continue to grow—but so must our responsibility. Companies need to make sure that they’re employing AI in ethical ways that help, rather than hurt, the hiring process.
Looking ahead, we’ll likely see even more personalized AI-driven hiring experiences. Imagine AI tools that can craft outreach messages uniquely tailored to a candidate’s skills and career aspirations, or AI-powered career coaching that provides real-time feedback on applications and interview performance in a way that is compliant and less error prone than human feedback. These innovations will make hiring more engaging and rewarding for both recruiters and job seekers.
Recruiters who adopt AI will not only be more effective but will also deliver a recruitment experience that is more inclusive, equitable, and engaging. After all, AI probably won’t replace recruiters, but recruiters using AI have the potential to replace those who don’t.
