Ever since he first worked with the web back in 1997, Matt Alder has been fascinated by the emerging technologies that change the way companies go about recruiting people. He is recognised as a highly influential recruitment futurist and industry leading digital, social and mobile strategist.
Matt’s ethos is simple – in order to shape your future as an employer, you need to better connect with the talent you need. Using his unrivalled experience of leading digital migration within large companies and unique insight into the opportunities emerging technologies can offer, he helps businesses get the very best out of their recruiting activities by looking at every aspect of their digital recruitment strategy. As well as delivering pragmatic business solutions that connect the forward thinking organisations with the elusive talent they seek. Matt is also a respected commentator on the emerging world of social recruiting, a regular blogger, published author and accomplished public speaker. What’s more, he has also been acknowledged as being amongst the world’s top HR & Recruitment Influencers. Above all, 16 years on from his initial fascination with the online world, Matt remains passionately curious about the ever-changing shape of the digital recruitment landscape.
2020 has been a year where we were all forced to do things differently and it presents a gigantic opportunity for the recruiting industry. Matt says it is time to think about what they can optimize, how they can experiment more and make data-driven decisions.
People are the soul of a company, hence the importance of good recruitment and selection process. Generally, when a company offers a job, there are a large number of candidates. Therefore, it is important to have the right strategies to attract and choose correctly, guaranteeing a good experience for the candidate, otherwise the organization will have reputational problems
The use of Artificial Intelligence in recruitment and selection will generate the automation of repetitive and transactional processes. The AI through chatbots will be the ones that will perform the database review activities, the development of profiles, identify and evaluate skills, the preselection of candidates, the analysis and segmentation of talent in the market as well as the interaction with potentials candidates 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
AI is enhancing the recruitment and selection process: for example, chatbots are already interacting with candidates, answering frequently asked questions about the position, providing support in the review of resumes, workflow and data analysis, as well as scheduling interviews, via email, text messages, and social media.
However, Matt tells us: “chatbots are not designed to replace humans”. Instead, a key contribution of chatbots is the ability to process multiple data sources to find and assess candidate qualifications, make recommendations, and provide a short list of potential candidates who are best suited for the position. This is a great advantage since it allows you to accelerate activities, create consistency and effectiveness in the talent acquisition process.
While AI can be an excellent benefit for the recruitment area, it is people who understand situations related to ethics, morals and integrity from the human point of view. Recruiters recognize what type of people are sociable and care about affective relationships even within the workplace, this situation is a human trait that artificial intelligence cannot fully deduce or understand, in this way the benefits of AI with the experience of recruiters can be combined so that hiring decisions are guaranteed and the best benefits are obtained.
It is important to maintain an ethical mindset that supports value-based decision making, focusing on doing not only what is good for the business, but what is good for the employees and customers of an organization and the communities in which they live and they work.
There are a few challenges that AI brings to Recruitment teams, to name a few: new structure, assessment and skills development, and change management. This new experience for recruitment will involve evaluating current capabilities and creating a plan to find the balance between what AI will bring to organizations and the interaction and value proposition that people will bring into the processes and practices to enable the HR strategy and recruitment deliver faster solutions using technology to create sustainable value and aligning with the business strategy.
Matt Alder | The Recruiting Future Podcast, HR Technologist, Recruitment Marketing Expert, International Speaker & Author