The rise of the recruit-bot

In 1950, Alan Turing predicted that by the year 2000, computers would be able to pass as a human during a text conversation. Alan was a little out, but not by much.

The automation of processes has been one of the hottest discussion topics in 2018. Given that recruitment of staff is a tremendous time-intensive process, and one which requires consistency it must surely be a perfect candidate for automation? Well yes… and no. Automation can assist a great deal, but it can’t do everything, not yet anyway.

It is important to know, candidates that are active in today’s employment market are more and more accustomed to using automated chatbots as part of the recruitment process. Non-human involvement equates to zero bias, and therefore reinforce fairness. This is a massive plus point.

In a recent survey by Allegis, 58% of candidates stated they were comfortable interacting with AI and recruitment chatbots in the early stages of the application process. An even larger percentage, 66%, were comfortable with chatbots taking care of interview scheduling and preparation.

So what benefits can your business gain from appointing a Recruit-bot?

· Streamlining the applicant journey, by ensuring consistency in the recruitment process and asking screening questions and answering FAQs.
· Ranking applications, this can be undertaken fairly and quickly based upon candidate submissions. As a result shortlisting is quick and clean.
· Scheduling assessments and tests, this can be straightforward and without human involvement.
· 24/7 responses, your bot will exist across your website and all social channels simultaneously. Your recruitment is now ‘always on’ engaging with potential hires.
· Repetitive tasks eliminated, creating reports, sending online forms or adding candidates to a management system can be a thing of the past.

So automation can really help, especially when the volume of applications is a potential issue and you need consistency, or when you are recruiting globally across time zones and don’t want to miss out on a potential inquiry.

Some issues do still remain, despite the efforts of artificial intelligence to do it all. In the main, these are the human factors, for example, the assessment of certain competencies that are essential for a job such as a team working.

However, at present, bots aren’t quite ready to handle the intricate aspects of the recruitment process that require patience and finesse. Answering more specific questions that more specialist professionals may want to ask about a job opportunity, selling the career opportunity or negotiation of salary and terms. These aspects are not part of any readily available algorithm…yet.

Justin Rush is a career recruiter and Director at Abacus Talent Group. Justin can be contacted on [email protected] for further advice.