Are you thinking about a human? Here’s the twist — may not necessarily be. This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) comes into play!

Technology has evolved at a mind-blowing pace and transformed our lives.
AI has become a hot topic and different sectors have been incorporating it into their ways of working, recognizing it as a powerful ally to take their businesses to the next level and gain competitive advantage. Therefore, it’s not surprising that AI has (also) been paving its way into the recruitment and selection field.

In a generalist way, AI allows Human Resources (HR) professionals to streamline the recruiting workflow through the automation of manual, repetitive, high-volume, and time-consuming tasks. This way it’s possible to provide a personalized, timesaving, data-driven, and fair approach, both for stakeholders and candidates.

Nowadays, there are several practical applications of AI in the recruitment and selection processes.

One of the most common uses of AI in recruitment is in the screening phase. AI-powered tools can screen large volumes of CVs, using keywords and data to match candidates’ experience and skills to job descriptions. By eliminating demographics from the analysis, it reduces biases and therefore contributes to building a more diverse and inclusive culture.
Moreover, AI can also generate a predictive analysis of how likely it is that the candidate will be successful in a specific role.

The worth of AI goes beyond the initial stages of the hiring process and can be present throughout the entire candidate’s journey. Namely, chatbots are widely used for recruitment purposes and have the potential to improve the candidate experience, by responding in real-time to candidates, immediately informing them about updates to the process and next steps, and even automatically coordinating the scheduling of interviews through calendar integrations.

But despite being a great innovation, some challenges arise from the use of AI in recruitment. Because AI depends on data, ensuring its quality is essential to maintain the reliability and validity of the outcomes. Additionally, we must not overlook the associated ethical and legal aspects, which in fact have been increasingly reflected in labor legislation updates. This way, HR professionals must bear in mind the importance of acting transparently and fairly when employing these tools.

Lastly, does this mean that AI will take the place of HR professionals?

It is possible to envisage that AI will continue to be preponderant in the years ahead and shape the recruitment landscape.

However, human processes will remain indispensable, as AI must assume a supporting role, with the ultimate goal of improving job performance through automation. By introducing AI into the background, HR professionals can free up their schedules to invest in transversal projects, provide an outstanding candidate experience, and define proactive hiring strategies and KPIs, while partnering with Hiring Managers to reduce the Time to Hire, the Cost per Hire, and improve the Quality of Hire.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment was originally published in New Work Development on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.