If you are already familiar with our Essential Recruitment Planning Guide, launched in 2017, then you will know that we provided a bonus chapter at the end of the free guide, namely the ‘2018 Hiring Trends.’ This chapter outlined our forecasts for the hiring landscape this year.

Although we weren’t able to make any specific predictions for 2018 hiring trends, we did highlight the likelihood of AI technology taking off in recruitment come 2018, following the enormous success it has had in customer experience for online customer services.

So, as the first quarter of the year draws to a close, let’s see how the theme of AI assisted recruitment has taken shape so far in 2018.

Artificial Intelligence:

In 2017, AI was already being used in recruitment to automate certain tasks such as sourcing, screening and interview scheduling. Now we didn’t make any specific predictions here but we did warn businesses to pay close attention to developments here to ensure they didn’t fall behind the times, especially when leading technology competitors were making rapid developments in terms of virtual interviewing and automated screening and sourcing.

In 2018, the use of AI has taken customer service and human resources by storm. The more publicity we are seeing for AI in recruitment, the clearer it’s becoming that the recruitment market is buzzing with innovation and the advancement and applications of AI in recruitment have only just begun.

AI-Powered Assistants (Chatbots):

So far in 2018 hiring trends, we have seen the increasing introduction of AI-powered assistants (chatbots) to transform the employee experience. They are working to reduce the time to hire and increase numbers of successfully completed applications.

Photo from Harver.

Two examples of such bots include ‘Mya’ and ‘Olivia’. Mya is designed to manage sourcing, screening and scheduling and uses natural language and machine learning to create candidate profiles, shortlist applicants and pick up on details in chatbot conversation. Olivia on the other hand engages with candidates via the web, various mobile platforms and/or social channels. Both of these bots are largely improving candidate experience by making sure applicants get regular updates about the status of their application, feedback, and are always available to answer questions.

Relationship building with candidates:

Beamery, a leading candidate relationship platform has helped companies proactively build relationships with passive candidates while also reducing hiring cycles and generating hiring data. Machine learning has been able to identify priority (passive) candidates and even suggest the best times to reach individual candidates. Although a highly refined piece of technology one can’t help but agree that this particular use of AI is creating stronger relationships with candidates by treating them like its most valuable customers – something that perhaps often gets lost in the rush and hurry of recruitment and the prioritisation of clients and candidates by recruitment consultants.

Writing Job Adverts:

Often overlooked, it is the job ad which usually kicks-off a candidates journey. There are now companies such as Textito which use data and predictive analytics to analyse language which has previously caused candidates to proceed through an application and dismiss language where others haven’t. This is all in the lead up to creating the ‘perfect job advert’ However, one may argue – if we all have access to this refined technology, has the battle for talent just got even harder?

Virtual Interviews:

There are an increasing number of automated and non-automated video interview platforms on the market, offering companies the opportunity to sample a candidate face-to-face without having to invest the time in interviewing them until they reach a final stage interview. This saves hiring managers a wealth of money and time in the earlier stages of screening and helps their clients identify the strongest candidates to shortlist much earlier on in the process. Non-automated systems such as ODRO work as the above. However, AI platforms used by larger corporates who have far larger applicant numbers, now use automated AI video interviewing platforms which automatically record candidates’ answers, create candidate profiles and send them to relevant hiring managers. Panna is an example of this and also includes voice and face recognition technology – another technical advancement that has taken off in 2018.

Bias-free Hiring:

Harver is using predictive analytics to make predictions on a candidate’s likelihood in succeeding in a role they have applied for. I KNOW, CLEVER RIGHT! Who Knew?!

According to Harver, this is highly successful as it draws data from ‘criteria that are specific to the job and others that are linked to a company’s cultural requirements, algorithms calculate a matching score for every candidate.’ – Fascinating to say the least.

According to Glassdoor, 66& of millennials are planning to leave their jobs by 2020 – perhaps an AI tool of such capabilities is the key to identifying candidates who are going to stand the test of time by finding them a company which embodies all of their cultural, financial and career needs?

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