Benefits of using AI in Recruitment | Raghav Poojary | Senior VP- Digital Automation & Marcom | FirstMeridian Business Services

The last couple of years have proven the benefits of integration of technologies in the workplace. Companies across the world were able to deploy work-from-home for their employees at the onset of the pandemic. While there was a learning curve for some companies, the pandemic proved that digitisation is the way ahead.

Various technologies were also deployed by HR teams – from recruitment, onboarding, initiating employee engagement activities, database management and sorting other employee woes. The deployment of technologies like Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), chatbots and other automation processes helped recruiters deal with a large number of applications even through the pandemic.

However, in the world of recruitment, while technology was useful, it also threw up several challenges for HR teams. Personal interactions were replaced by virtual meetings. Critical body language cues were lost in translation in Zoom calls and virtual interviews. HR personnel involved in recruitment now had an additional step of background checks and verifications.

There have been various instances being reported of candidates lip syncing during interviews, or worse, the person who interviewed is not the person who turned up for the job. It is hard to access the person on the other end of the camera without accurate cues. Technology, in this case, also proved to be an impediment.

AI in Recruitment
Artificial Intelligence has been used extensively in recruitment over the last few years. Emotion AI is a subset of artificial intelligence that can understand, measure, simulate and react to human emotions. Many in the HR sector are already familiar with some of the basic processes that can be AI-driven. Tasks such as parsing resumes, automated responses and chatbots are now the norm in several industries.

However, AI plays another crucial role in recruitment. AI enabled chatbots help in quicker and more efficient filtering of candidates. AI can also help reach out to candidates for faster communication, setting up interviews and sending out other communications. Emotion AI enhances the process much more effectively. For example, video interviews have become the norm over the last few years. A candidate shares an introductory video for the screening round or the entire interview with the recruiter is fully recorded for further assessment.

AI bot can identify details based on micro facial cues, voice patterns, tonality and emotions of the candidate in the video. These are broken into easily consumable ‘facts’ by the bot and shared with the recruiter for further assessment. Emotion AI-based tools can help save a lot of time for the recruiter and help select the suitable candidates to the appropriate positions ensuring the best fit for particular job roles.

Conclusion:
The role of technology and AI in recruitment leads to cost savings along with reducing human errors. The use of AI in recruitment aims at improving the efficiency of recruitment systems by automating processes such as CV checking. Improved efficiency leads to shorter recruitment cycles and thus improves the competitiveness of companies in recruiting the best talent, who might otherwise accept another offer if the selection process takes longer.