What is the future of AI in the recruitment industry in 2022?

Talent hunting can be a costly and time-consuming process that is quite vulnerable to human lapses of judgment. This is why AI-enabled recruitment is highly demanded in the world of human resource management. AI talent acquisition is here to stay.  

Recruitment agencies are already using machine learning algorithms for some stages of the hiring process, if not all. This could be for finding the right candidates, optimizing job ads or filtering resumes. In recent years, AI is even being used during job interviews. Candidates are often asked to record their answers to questions over video, which is then algorithmically analyzed to determine aptitude. Unilever uses the AI-empowered process of Hire Vue to do this for its initial stages of recruitment. A candidate’s behavior and aptitude are gauged from their facial expressions and these insights are then used to speed up the hiring process.   

Proponents of AI insist that the process is grounded in data and research while critics have labeled it a pseudoscience, with a tendency to aggravate existing gender and racial biases.  

So how effective is AI-enabled talent hunting? What are some advantages and disadvantages of AI recruitment? Let’s discuss!  

Should we be excited about AI recruitment?

AI-integrated hiring has the potential to offer unprecedented benefits to HR managers – from the screening process to managing employee experience. Recruitment today looks drastically different from recruitment of a decade ago. What does this mean for the future of hiring in 2022? Let’s take a look at some factors that brighten the future of recruitment.   

It saves time  

Menial tasks can often take up a disproportionate amount of an HR manager’s time. This is why automation of simple tasks helps HR save time so that they may be able to focus on more pressing matters. Many businesses today use applicant tracking systems to identify keywords in resumes and subsequently rank them based on candidate aptitude for a given job. Time is a precious commodity these days and AI can help you save it!  

It helps with better alignment   

Ensuring that the right candidates see your job posting can be difficult for HR managers. This is where AI can help. Software with predictive analytics can evaluate your past job postings as well as the job postings of your competitors in order to improve the language and structure of your future talent hunting content. This will allow HR to come up with stronger job descriptions, and a sharper overall hiring process.  

AI can also help you avoid language that might appear discriminatory and unwelcoming.  

Should we be wary of AI?

Though there is a lot to be excited about when it comes to AI-integrated recruitment, we should still proceed with caution. 

Flimsy evidence  

Critics of AI enablement in recruitment point out that there is no evidence to suggest that facial expressions make someone a better candidate. Facial cues can be highly contextual and dependent on a multitude of factors. Gender, racial and cultural factors can also come into play here which makes AI usage less desirable. When AI replicates human biases, it can be a huge problem because people can still unlearn biases whereas AI won’t be able to unless reprogrammed.  

Dehumanizes recruitment  

Contemporary hiring practices place great emphasis on developing empathy and building relationships with candidates during the recruitment process. This increases the chances of hearing back from candidates and decreases the likelihood of recruiters getting ghosted. It is important to humanize a process that can otherwise feel disorienting and anxiety-inducing.  

Conclusion  

AI has already made its presence known in the recruitment industry. Some businesses are actively automating their processes while others are trying to catch up.  

Though HR has already reaped the benefits of technology-empowered hiring, only time will unfold the true potential of AI. Critics of AI also make some good points about unnecessary reliance on automation which dehumanizes the already stressful process of hiring.  

AI seems to be a harbinger of positive innovation but one should be cognizant of the fact that it can’t replace processes that require a human touch.