How AI is making job recruiters’ lives easier
Once feared as making the role of employment recruiters impersonal and robotic, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is instead giving them the information they need to find and hire higher-quality professionals.
That’s the finding of a global Korn Ferry survey of nearly 770 talent-acquisition professionals.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents said AI had changed the way recruiting is done in their organisations, with 76 per cent saying using AI as a sourcing tool generates higher-quality candidates.
Asked to compare the quality of candidates today to five years ago, when AI was still in its infancy, 65 per cent said candidates are more qualified today.
Despite this, 56 per cent agreed that more roles are filled through internal candidates compared to external candidates, which demonstrates a growing focus on homegrown talent.
In addition, 75 per cent of companies surveyed said they had an Internal Mobility programme. Previous training on protocols and procedure put internal candidates ahead of the game when coming up to speed in learning a new role in a new division or location.
Half of the respondents said Big Data and AI were making their roles easier, with 40 per cent saying the main way it helps is providing valuable insights, and 34 per cent saying it has freed up their time.
Of the 14 per cent who said AI had made their jobs more difficult, the majority believed they had too much data and didn’t know what to do with it.
“AI helps us dramatically enhance outcomes by reducing the time spent on sifting through large numbers of candidate to find those best matched for a particular position,” said Korn Ferry managing director Pip Eastman.
“This is particularly true in emerging markets where there are many potential candidates, but niche skills are in short supply. Looking ahead, we’ll see more leaders finding ways to reskill and promote existing employees.”
“Data for data’s sake is not a solution for smart talent-acquisition practices,” added vice president Franz Gilbert.
“Recruiters need to refine their skills and work with the right kind of AI tools that will provide them with critical information, such as compensation analysis and supply-demand reports on particular job categories in specific regions.
“We use AI to provide hiring managers with tangible insights, not simply industry rules of thumb or anecdotal stories about similar searches.”
The vast majority of respondents said they had at least some understanding of how AI can affect the recruiting process, and 78 per cent said they were excited about working with AI more in the future.
