Technology finds its way at every stage of recruitment: pre-recorded video interviews and conversational robots to interact with candidates on the Career page, talent prospecting using artificial intelligence to better qualify candidates. But is this always synonymous with a better candidate experience?
In the case of the “conversational robot”, the answer seems to be yes. First, it is important to note that virtual assistants programmed to answer questions from website visitors are generally popular. According to a Lucidworks survey conducted in 2021, 70% of shoppers said they used the conversational robot during their online shopping and 64% said they liked it “for specific product information”.
There is the same trend in recruitment. The 2020 Talent Board report – North America section – reports a 15% increase in companies with a conversational robot on their career page, bringing approval to 38%. The organization has been able to measure its impact. When such measures are present on the career page, the number of candidates agreeing to refer contacts from their professional network increases by 25%, we learn in the report.
Another trend that is gaining ground is the use of “pre-recorded” screening interviews (as proposed by Isarta). If they save time for the recruiter – who can look at them at their convenience – they are not always well perceived by workers.
“If there’s one thing that would be an automatic deal breaker for me in an interview process, it would be not being able to talk to someone…. during the interview”, argued Olivier Fortier, in a LinkedIn publication.
The co-founder of Go Pyrate! – a “progressive” non-profit organization that provides coaching and management training – also denounced the “dehumanizing” aspect of such a practice.
AI at the service of “sourcing”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now being used for talent prospecting. Earlier this year, we talked about the Humainpredictions.io application– developed in the United States – to assess whether the candidate is ready to relaunch, by using AI. We have a company here in Canada that offers such a feature.
V3 Stent Group has integrated the recruitment module “Talent” into its HR solutions suite. This module collects LinkedIn contacts from employees of a company who have consented to the exercise. The objective: to widen the company’s pool of potential candidates and allow organic boosts between contacts from the same network.
“By recruiting in this way, it stimulates staff retention, because people who are hired through SEO tend to stay longer in the company,” says Alexandre Bouchard, company co-president.
The Artificial Intelligence algorithm in the Talent module assigns a relevance score to candidates based on a given position. The score takes into account the candidate’s skills, but also their “openness” to receiving an external offer (the algorithm is based on the frequency of their LinkedIn profile and parameter updates). In an “ideal” scenario, the coveted professional is boosted by one of their peers, just in time, when they are ready for a change of air.
What more can you ask for!
