Will AI replace recruitment and the role of the recruiter?
The short answer is…No! Given recruiters often make hundreds of complicated decisions during the process. AI simply isn’t flexible enough or powerful enough to take over this specific process.
Let me expand a little further upon this.
Don’t get me wrong, AI recruiting software is a great asset for recruitment teams and recruitment businesses whether that be screening CVs, matching of candidates or going as far as scheduling interviews. According to Forbes 84% of business leaders surveyed believe AI has drastically reduced administrative times and tasks.
Tools such as ChatGPT for instance can write a job description, create adverts and when prompted can generate questions for interviews including competency-based interview questions. Chatbots in the current candidate driven market do have the ability to enhance a candidate experience especially in the pre-qualification stage of the process. CareerBuilder’s data found 67% of job seekers had a positive impression when they received automated updates throughout the process.
So, will recruitment be automated in the future?
As I mentioned earlier the short answer is No. What AI lacks and is likely it will always lack is human judgement. Also, the ability to build meaningful relationship and a personality, which is often overlooked in the recruitment process.
A lack of judgement
Let me start with the human judgement aspect. Where AI will search and read data looking for patterns and key words, it can potentially be reading insufficient data. Then it gets stuck in a loop of suggesting the same candidates based on said keywords. A recruiter is often trained to look beyond the obvious and interpret ambiguous information, which in turn incorporates diverse experience. They also have the capacity for moral and ethical reasoning to make the correct decisions for all parties involved, which AI algorithms may overlook.
Creating meaningful relationships
The main thing AI is not good at and unlikely to ever be able to do will be creating meaningful and solid relationships with candidates. Changing jobs for whatever reason is a deeply emotional decision and often stressful. For that reason, being able to speak with someone should never be replaced. Humans are able to build trust and ask the right questions in conversations in order to gain the best information from candidates. Enabling them to achieve the best outcome and secure the right job for the candidate.
Building relationships often lead to a more meaningful interaction between recruiters and candidates and will help understand goals, strengths, interests which will factor into any decision-making process. Often its these meaningful conversations that make the difference in the process and should never be overlooked or underestimated. This is something that AI is not able to do currently.
Conclusion – AI’s ability to replace the recruiter
In conclusion, the role of a recruiter is a valuable one and is a skilled role that cannot be replaced fully by AI. However, the future of recruitment will ultimately be a collaboration and some areas of recruitment could be made simpler through AI. Such as, for example, job advert writing / formatting.
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