Is AI helping your team, or replacing it?
We’ve always said that AI tools work best when they augment your skills and resources, instead of replacing them. Organizations that leverage their AI tools to grow their capabilities outperform organizations that use them to cut costs, in the long run.
Today, we’re going to explain why, and talk about how this is particularly relevant in Talent Acquisition.
Table of Contents
Why replacing people with tools doesn't work
Sadly, many organizations struggle to recruit effectively, a result of a variety of internal and external factors. On the internal side, we see most commonly:
- Hiring-process is not data driven and rational
- Technology and process are not aligned
- User adherence to process and usage of technology is incomplete
The underlying problem can be distilled into a simple theme: generally organizations who don’t get the most out of their ATS either have a process that isn’t well designed to meet their hiring goals, or their technology and people are not well aligned to it.
Unfortunately, some organizations simply try to replace their people resources with AI in an attempt to improve their performance. AI tools, however sophisticated, will struggle with the same constraints we describe above, if they are placed in the same roles that people previously occupied. To really address organizational TA struggles, the underlying process, technology, and utilization gaps must be addressed.
This is our area of expertise, and if you’re struggling, we can help you identify your core issues, and map out a solution path.
How AI can help
Where AI can help, whether you’ve already closed these gaps or not, is to augment your existing personnel, enabling your organization to address these core issues.
- AI scheduling and chatbots can help offload low-level interactions between candidates and recruiters/HR. Think interview scheduling or acknowledging applications; by allowing AI tools to take over low-skill/high-volume tasks, your people are freed up to focus on tasks that require their time and expertise, like conducting interviews, pre-closing on offers, and negotiating onboarding.
- AI chatbots can be leveraged to draft templates and ad hoc communications. Writing skills vary within TA and HR teams, and the process can be time-consuming. Making chatbots available to assist with ad-hoc writing, and for drafting templates, can standardize your outputs and relieve your team of a troublesome task. It is important though that any such tools are trained and have guardrails, to ensure outputs match your branding, voice, and policy guidelines.
- AI tools can help serve as a knowledge-base and information tool, for both candidates and employees. They can support candidates by answering questions (e.g. finding jobs, answering policy questions, etc.) that would otherwise get routed to your HR team. Similarly, AI tools can act as knowledge-base resources for your users. An AI chatbot can answer questions about those same policies, address ATS inquiries, and direct people to needed-resources.
Each of these enables your recruiters and HR teams to focus on their core responsibilities and leverage their vital skills. If your organization still has underlying process/technology issues, this provides a more stable foundation while you underpin the workflows. If your process is working well, this allows you to execute faster and more effectively; improving results instead of just matching them at a slightly lower cost.