Are You Using AI In Your Hiring? Should You Be?

“Artificial Intelligence is about replacing human decision making with more sophisticated technologies.” – Falguni Desai

The machines are taking over the world.  It seems lately like everyone is screaming “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” like Chicken Little.  There is so much doomsday anxiety and armageddon-esque trepidation surrounding AI technology.  “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world.” Sam Altman.  “Computers will overtake humans with AI within the next 100 years.” Stephen Hawking.  “Humans should be worried about the threat posed by artificial intelligence.” Bill Gates.  “The potential benefits of artificial intelligence are huge.  So are the dangers.” Dave Waters.  Let’s put aside the possible apocalyptic dangers and focus on the potential positive uses of AI for what we do everyday: hiring.  We’ll help you answer the question: Are you using AI in your hiring?  And should you be if you’re not?

Writing the Job Description

At the beginning of every search for your next hire, you start with the Job Description.  It’s such a crucial part of the process that we wrote a blog with tips to writing an effective Job Description.  There is a veritable cornucopia of paid and free tools that will now write Job Descriptions for you using AI technology.  Simplified and Job Description.ai are just a couple.  Every day, the technology gets better.  The more you use it, the more intuitive it becomes. 

However, you should also evaluate how much time you’re spending on putting information into the tool to have it generate a Job Description for you and how much time you’re spending on editing the AI product to hone it to your specifications.  You might be spending more time than just writing one yourself.  Another option is working with a great recruiter.  Whether you’re looking for an Acumatica Implementation Consultant or a Sage Intacct Accountant or a D365 Business Central Analyst, a great recruiter will work with you to craft a detailed and effective Job Description attracting the exact talent you’re looking for.

Looking for Candidates

And that’s the second part of the process. Once you have your Job Description out there, it’s time to find the potential candidates.  AI is advancing there as well.  In all honesty this might be the hardest part of the process.  Actively going out and looking for the right candidates is an art form, and now, apparently, it’s also a science as AI gets more involved in the process.  All the top Job Posting sites have some sort of candidate matching process.  Dice, Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn all have ways to automatically search for and suggest candidate matches.  Some searches are based solely on the Job Description.  Some ask you to put in certain criteria.  Others use a sort of search code called a “Boolean String”.  

There is a potential downside to this technology.  The results you get are based not only on your search criteria, but on the information available on potential candidates.  What I mean by this is, if you are looking for an “Acumatica Implementation Consultant” and the candidate’s resume says “ERP Business Consultant”, you might miss out on the perfect candidate.  AI is good, but a great recruiter will look at that resume, get in touch with the candidate, and dig deeper to give you the best targeted results.  Another thing to consider is that candidates might embellish their resume.  AI might give you false positives.  Again, this is where relying on a great recruiter to sift through the results can be essential.

Pre-Vetting Candidates

This is probably the most tedious, time consuming, annoying part of the process.  This is sometimes where a company throws in the towel and decides to hire a recruiter.  You could have hundreds or thousands of results from your search.  At this point, you’re faced with a decision.

• Trust the AI search results and make attempts to reach out to every single potential candidate
• Meticulously read through each resume before reaching out to a smaller targeted list
• Or employ even more AI technology to check the quality of the results against the original AI that found the candidates in the first place

Again, the AI will only find what you tell it to look for.  And you better know how to ask it.  For example, if you decide to cast a wide net and search for someone with ERP technology experience instead of a specific product, asking the wrong way will result in every resume having every instance of the letters ERP.  That’s right, every resume that has enterprise, interpretation, overpower, counterpoint, etc. will show up in your search result. A well-trained recruiter will not only take the time to vet those resumes, but will look between the lines and see what might not be there.  And they’ll do it so you don’t have to.

Interviewing Candidates

When you find the right candidate, like going on a first date with a real match, this can be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling parts of the process.  But even this part of it is being conducted more and more by AI technology.   Software companies like SparkHire provide video interviewing tools that claim will make candidate screening 5x faster, eliminate scheduling challenges, and gain more insight on job applicants in less time.  Another automated interviewing platform, HireVue, says it has a 90% candidate satisfaction rating.  However, there are also some drawbacks.

A recent LinkedIn Talent Blog details some of the negatives for one-way interviewing.  There is a lack of human connection.  The longer the hiring process goes on without the candidate speaking to an actual person, the more likely they are to withdraw from consideration.  It’s also difficult for recruiters to speak highly about the company that’s hiring.  Most of the candidates getting jobs today are not coming from a place of unemployment.  That means a recruiter has to lure employed candidates away from their current position for you and your company.  That’s hard to do with pre-recorded questions in a one-way interview.  One-way videos are also not conducive to organic conversation.  Not only are the questions pre-written, but the answers are rehearsed and polished.  They don’t lead anywhere that might be crucial for making a hiring decision one way or the other.

The Future of AI in Hiring

According to a recent article by Career Builder, AI is helping hiring managers create job ads, screen applicants, engage with candidates, hold digital interviews, collect referrals, and more.  And, as mentioned in this article and other articles like Recruiting Daily.com, there are pros and cons to using tools like AI and Chat GPT in your recruiting process.  The questions we posed in the beginning were “Are you using AI in your hiring?” and “Should you be?”.  The answer to both, most likely, is yes.

Whether you realize it or not, you’re probably using some form of AI in your hiring process.  If you’re not using any type of AI technology at all, well, you should be.  But cautiously.  It can save you time setting up your search, looking for candidates, assessing their qualifications, and working through the interview process.  But, it does have some inherent potential flaws.  It can overlook the perfect candidate.  It can be manipulated.  It can create a cold, impersonal impression.  And it can be susceptible to algorithmic bias.  So weigh the pros and cons when employing AI, but don’t outrightly dismiss it.  Because this is no longer the future of hiring.  Using AI in your hiring is the present, and it’s only going to become more prevalent.