In this current highly competitive market, organisations are having trouble hiring and are looking for ways to improve the recruitment process. The cost of a bad hire ranges between £20,000 — £40,000. Lost capital is only one of the many damages an organisation can experience — it can also negatively impact the business’s image and work environment.
It comes with no surprise that 60% of applicants quit in the middle of filling out application forms because of the length or complexity of the application. Traditional recruitment processes are becoming outdated and with the constant concern about conscious and unconscious bias in this sector, companies are investing in artificial intelligence to upgrade the methods.
The new trend in recruitment is chatbots, and they are revolutionizing the industry. These advancements in recruitment software have simplified the recruitment process and the introduction of analytics has improved the prediction of the candidate fit. More and more organisations are beginning to integrate sophisticated chatbots in their recruitment process. Apple, Google, Tesla, Facebook, all have invested in artificial intelligence, reducing the workload of humans.
What are Chatbots?
Chatbots are a form of artificial intelligence, designed to closely replicate a conversation with a human. Think of Siri or cortana, as they work in a similar way providing useful information for the user. Some examples of recruitment chatbots include jobpal and Roborecruiter. They can be used on various platforms, including social media, email or websites.
How do chatbots improve recruitment?
Humans can’t scale as quickly as computing resources and as such chatbots can offer efficiency to talent acquisition teams. They are revolutionising cutting-edge recruitment, making things easier for HR, by eliminating repetitive admin processes and freeing recruiter’s time to let them focus on more important things. Job seekers are accepting chatbots as well, because the more digital we become , the less we depend on face to face interactions. Chatbots can improve the fluidity of repetitive tasks to make businesses operate more efficiently.
Chatbots can improve your employer brand image
The company brand image can be enhanced by chatbots because of the improved candidate experience. This can result in positive word of mouth which can encourage more high value candidates to apply. Furthermore, chatbots can show to the world that your company is innovative.
Reduce human bias
Chatbots utilise one algorithm to interact with each applicant, ensuring consistency and reducing bias.
Improve the chances of hiring the right person
Chatbots can improve predictive analytics, by gathering information about each candidate. They can examine employee lifetime value, which means predicting how long the candidate will stay with the company and how likely they are to be promoted. Organisations want to ensure the people they hire are the right ones, fitting in their company culture. By gathering data about candidates, chatbots can help find the right fit. This part is extremely important because employees that quit can cost the company three to six times more than it does to hire them.
Improve candidate experience
A good recruitment experience means reducing the time between the candidate applying to the role till they hear the decision the employer made. The chatbot can intervene here and speed up the process.
Builds rapport and improves candidate experience
Communication is key during the recruitment life cycle. Candidates are programmed to expect immediate answers from recruiters and easy access to information. However, recruiters rarely have time to sit and answer all the questions each candidate has, which can cause frustration. With chatbots, candidates can get immediate response which can result in a better experience.
Screening candidates
Chatbots are able to ask the candidates questions on anything from skills, education and experience. They can check work eligibility, cultural fit, experience, work availability, and run background checks to help recruiters during the screening stage by filtering out unsuitable candidates.
The Bottom Line
It is crucial that your organisation chooses a chatbot that has depth and real intelligence into its codebase and can be integrated into your other systems.
The corporate world is evolving which means recruitment itself needs to keep up and reinvent its methods. Technology is growing smarter everyday, but there is no algorithm that can top real human interaction. Recruitment depends on human judgement, meaningful connections, and building relationships. Therefore, it seems unlikely that chatbots will replace humans, but rather they will complement and advance their capabilities.Using chatbots as part of your wider recruitment strategy will improve the candidate experience and speed up the hiring process.
