Automation is all set to change Recruitment forever. Many companies have already started adopting automation. They believe it has the potential to speed up the hiring process and make recruiters more productive. In circumstances where robots are likely to automate 50% of the global workforce by 2045. What exactly does the future hold for recruiters?
In a recently conducted #TTRT TweetChat, Mr. Tarun Sharma CEO, BMC Software shared his views on the Future of Recruitment in an Automated World.
Have a look at his insights from the session.
Question: In Future, would AI and robots be able to replace Recruiters?
Tarun Sharma: No. However, certain tasks like screening, matching with job profiles, scheduling, initial assessments et cetera will be done by bots. This will leave high-value activities such as consulting, advising, candidate and stakeholder engagements for the recruiters. Hence, in my mind, use of AI and bots will make the recruiters’ job more strategic.
Question: Which recruitment processes would be automated in future?
Tarun Sharma: Screening of resumes, initial candidate engagement and assessment, scheduling, consistent candidate engagement and even onboarding of candidates. I believe that these processes will look different tomorrow than they do today. For example, today we screen candidates based on resumes that are submitted against a job description. However, tomorrow, we may screen passive candidates based on their social media profile, even if they have not applied for a job. The screening itself may not try to match simply the keywords on a job description; but may include softer elements like attitude, desired behaviour et cetera, given that people typically have different personas on different social media platforms. Similarly, given that the initial assessments may happen with bots, we may not have to screen the candidates to reduce the number of people that we need to have interactions with. We may be able to interview every single candidate that profiles.
Question: Which tools & technologies will be adopted to improve recruitment in future?
Tarun Sharma: This is a hot area for startups in the arena of AI & machine learning and the tools and technologies will see very rapid development. There are already several companies working in very specific niche areas of recruiting, but also others that are using things like artificial intelligence and machine learning to build end-to-end HR platforms.
Question: What will be the future role of recruiters?
Tarun Sharma: In the future, with repetitive and very structured tasks being done using AI/automation, the recruiters will have to adapt more strategic roles of consulting & advising. The future recruiters will have to focus on candidate and stakeholder engagement to bring the right candidate into the organization. The difference between what the recruiters might be doing now vs what they do in the future is the fact that, they may be pursuing candidates that are not “actively” looking for a job since the screening process may have changed to identify passive candidates that are right for the job.
Question: How important will be the technical assessment in future?
Tarun Sharma: Tech assessment will retain its importance. However, with rapid changes in technologies, adaptability of candidates and their more intrinsic skills evaluation would become even more critical and we should expect that what’s will do deep mining of social media profiles of the candidates to ascertain the right fit. I do fully expect that the assessments may be done by bots more than human beings.
Question: Recruitment industry has to handle a lot of unstructured data. How will Analytics help recruiters?
Tarun Sharma: This is exactly why Analytics is extremely important to bring in a structure to large amounts of data each one of us is generating. Computers are far better at separating the noise from the information and correlating data from various sources to identify patterns and discrepancies. The new big data platforms already deal with structured and unstructured data in very effective ways. The recruiters will have to learn how to look for relevant information using the capabilities of these analytical platforms.
Question: What will be the career path of recruiters?
Tarun Sharma: The career path of recruiters will be no different from other specialists in HR organisations. They can move from specialists to generalists. It is important then, that the recruiters develop skills from different HR departments to be able to make the transition to strategic/executive leadership. Obviously, the current career path of making it into executive management overseeing large areas of responsibilities within recruiting will remain.
Question: How can we leverage automation in recruitment to improve the Candidate Experience?
Tarun Sharma: Keeping the candidate engaged through regular, relevant information sharing is a large part of candidate experience. Simple rules engines can decide what are these pieces of information that need to be shared with the candidate. Or, simple rules can decide what gifts can be sent to the candidates in case there is a special event in between the time-period of candidate accepting and joining, that comply with gifting policies, but are intelligent enough to seek likes and dislikes from publicly available social media profiles of the candidate. Similarly, on boarding is an excellent example of where candidate experience matters. Bots will be able to provide a more consistent experience than human beings can. For example, a structured automated workflow can kick off procurement activities for the candidate by seeking lead time information in the systems to ensure zero days on boarding and productivity.
Question: How frequently will recruitment happen in a company with automation in the picture?
Tarun Sharma: As frequently as it happens now. Recruitment is a continuous process to find the best people for the positions the company needs to fill. However, automation generally lends itself well when the scale of recruitment is high or highly specialised skills are needed in a skill-restrained market.
Question: Share tips on how a recruiter should get prepared for the future?
Tarun Sharma: I think recruiters should build consultative, analytical and advisory skills. They should stay abreast of technology trends that can be leveraged to make their jobs easier and more strategic. They should also broaden their skills into other areas of HR and become true HR business partners to the customers they serve. I think you should think of artificial intelligence and automation as an opportunity and not a threat to your jobs in the future.
Please share your views and suggestion
On one hand, automation will completely eliminate the repetitive tasks performed by the recruiters and on the other, it will create circumstances that will require them to evolve and learn new skills. What’s your take on it? Share your views in the comment.
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