Role Of AI Application In Reducing Recruiting Timelines- Pros And Cons

In today’s technology-driven era, the role of Artificial Intelligence in the industrial, as well as the business sector, is at its peak. Companies have realised the disrupting power of artificial intelligence in the recruitment process. Artificial intelligence has the potential to redefine the traditional process of recruitment as a recruitment tool.

First coined in 1956 by John McCarthy, the term Artificial Intelligence is referred to as the “science and engineering of making intelligent machines”.

Artificial Intelligence or AI is a branch of computer science that focuses on making intelligent machines that adapt to their surrounding environment and act accordingly. In other words, they learn from their encountered environment and perform tasks similar to human beings.

Today, every organisation wants to acquire the best talent so much so that it has become a top priority. The role of the recruitment sector is very challenging as the job is not limited to hiring only; rather, it is much more than that.

It is quite evident that a recruiter’s job is laborious, wherein he is constantly coerced to reduce the time taken to recruit a new hire. The current average time-to-hire is one month which means it approximately takes one month in the whole boarding process for any candidate. This does not guarantee a long term partnership with the candidate.

Undeniably, the invasion of artificial intelligence has made a recruiter’s job easy. But is it?

This blog focuses on the pros and cons of artificial intelligence during the recruitment process. Use of AI in the recruitment process is not only advantageous to the recruiters but also the candidates. Here’s how:

For the recruiters

Quick candidate sourcing – Posting and marketing the jobs becomes an easy and less time-consuming task with the help of AI-powered software. Textio is one such tool which helps in better and quicker job postings as the postings are done on multiple platforms.

Fast screening of resumes – Shifting huge piles of paper resumes becomes exhaustive and time taking exercise. For this, various AI applications such as ClearFit, Filtered, Harver, Ansaro, and ATS have come to the rescue. These tools find and rank candidates depending upon educational qualifications, work experience, location, salary bracket, languages spoken, etc. According to research conducted in 2017, the cost per screening dropped by 75% in the organisations using AI tools.

Speeds up pre-employment screening – Background checks, employment verification and assessment of candidates have become a cakewalk with the help of AI tools. If done manually, these processes can take a few days, but Chatbot and GoogleHire speed up the process. AI enables auditory or textual means of interview with multiple candidates at any given point in time. In addition to this, it also enables video conferencing as well as video recordings.

Time-efficient candidate matching – Utilisation of candidate matching tools such as PhenomPeople and Textkernel allows the recruiter to conduct candidate matching in a time-efficient manner. In 2018, LinkedIn used the Recommended Matches tool which made the algorithm 20% better.

Ease of tracking passive job seekers – Manually, it becomes difficult to store the data of candidates not recruited. The tool such as Clearfit finds out and ranks those candidates for future references.

Time and energy saved of top management – All the pre-interview stages are handled by AI Applications, thus, saving time and contributing to organisational success.

Reducing hiring time – The hiring process is quite elaborate and cumbersome. Bigger the company, the longer the hiring process. The cost per hire escalates with the increase in time and further pushes down the Recruiter metric. According to a Recruiter Box article, it takes up to 22.5 hours to review a candidate and four more for pre-employment screening. Artificial Intelligence has unquestionably made the entire recruitment process cost-effective and time-saving manner.

Benefits for the Candidates

AI Apps play an important role in making a candidate’s job hunting process easy.

Unbiased – Many times, candidates face opinionated and biased interviewers. However, with automation, it has become a fair and impartial process for them.

Reliable data-driven decisions – AI apps help justified and logical selection of candidates as the candidates undergo many machine-based interactive sessions. This allows the candidates to be aware of every stage in the selection process and make well-informed decisions.

Two-way communication– Automated and personalised messages keep the candidates in loop, keeping them updated throughout the process. With such two-way communication, thus, organisations are able to ensure that the candidates are joining them as the process ends.

Long-distance candidates’ participation – AI tools like video recording/conferencing cut short the barrier of distance and allows candidates sitting at remote locations to apply for a job role.

Happy and confident candidates – Every individual does not feel confident enough in facing the interview panel in person. Artificial intelligence allows them to interact with the interviewer from a different space and put their best foot forward.

Waiting time gets reduced – As the AI tools speed up all the steps in the hiring process, the waiting time too diminishes.

Drawbacks of AI Applications-

Despite so many pros, artificial intelligence comes with a lot of challenges as well.

Lack of human touch – Recruitment is a human-centred activity and requires the involvement of a human hand unavoidably. However, machines lack an understanding of human emotions and lingo.

Unreliable – The AI recruitment tools rely on the information provided by the candidate-database. If the data is not up-to-date and accurate, then authenticity poses a challenge.

Influenced by humans – The information provided is updated by individuals, which could be biased due to personal prejudice based on gender, caste, race, etc. This makes the entire process inequitable and discriminatory.

One such limitation was posed by Amazon’s tool. It came to light in 2015 that the tool was biased against women as the fed data fed was preferential towards men, and the algorithm could not do anything about it.

Inaccuracy in the selection process – AI poses as a challenge as it allows participation of the candidates who are socially active and let go of others.

Communication mismatch – The AI tools also give rise to miscommunication and sometimes candidates face rejection due to a mismatch in the format of CVs and the machine language.

Conclusion-

Despite many drawbacks, the future of AI Applications is bright. Dealing with high costs and timelines becomes relatively easy with the use of AI applications such as ATS, Chatbot, etc. This is because these automated tools provide time reducing and cost-cutting solutions. Some organisations, including Uber and Unilever, have found the activity cost-effective as well as time-saving.

Hence, bringing artificial intelligence into use would prove to be beneficial for an organisation’s success. Organisations may also gain a superior advantage over others in the competitive market with the assistance of such AI applications.