How AI Is Changing Hiring Processes Via Big Data
The days of using LinkedIn and old-school recruiting methods to hire the best people, especially in the IT world, are waning. Well, maybe it’s not that cut and dried, but AI is making it possible in areas where traditional recruiting isn’t enough.
AI is especially impactful for companies looking for candidates who already have jobs. Not only are AI bots able find suitable matches by crawling the web, they can also predict whether someone is possibly open to a job change — some of the best ways to secure a successful hire.
AI is affecting everything from hiring processes to trends in human resource management as it relates to the IT job market.
Cream of the Crop
With a 4 percent unemployment rate, it can be tough to hire skilled people in high-tech fields, which is why employers want to find those currently employed.
“Still, we know that about 80% of the talent pool is open to new opportunities and willing to at least listen to what recruiters have to offer them,” writes for Forbes contributor Gal Amog. “In the high tech industry, people change jobs, on average, every two years, so 1 out of 4 candidates is interested in a new job.”
AI and machine learning algorithms break it down by finding out how long someone has been in their current job, whether the company they are working for is cutting employees, and if the candidate is interested in switching jobs, among other things.
HR Bots for Recruiting
HR professionals don’t have the time or manpower to gather all of the information about potential candidates without the help of AI. But they can work together.
From a recent BotList blog post:
For startups, hiring can be done by just a one-person team. However, as the company grows, bringing in hundreds of employees can be daunting. Scaling is a huge problem for the HR. Chatbots can simplify the process by getting information from applicants, giving them instructions, and doing background checks.
A note on background checks: Even if you’re a stellar candidate, 72 percent of employers conduct background checks on all the employees they hire. A background check investigates a potential employee’s history based on the employer’s criteria. A regular background check may include employment, education, criminal records, license and DMV records, and even credit history. Credit checks may be required if the job involves finances, but may not extend to jobs with no access to cash. Job seekers must give written approval before an employer performs a credit check. Just like a resume shows a prospective employer what a good employee you are, a credit report will show someone how reliable you are when it comes to paying back debts and managing finances.
This may be kind of surprising, but 38 percent of companies are using AI as a recruitment tool, with 62 percent expected to by the end of the year, according to Deloitte Human Capital Trends. It isn’t a replacement for HR’s knowledge of search, but it is designed to make their jobs easier and the company more successful and profitable.
IT Professionals Stand Out if They Know AI
AI is taking over the workloads in the IT industry, so if you’re in the IT job market and you want your skills to stand out in a sea of applications, you’d better know AI, big data and other relevant technology trends.
Why? Because companies that are using AI to find the best possible candidates are probably expecting these potential employees to already know how this cutting-edge technology works.
“In the IT industry, one of the most substantial issues teams face is being able to locate small, but potentially harmful, problems or errors in large swaths of big data,” according to University of Alabama at Birmingham. “As the colloquial phrase goes, it’s like attempting to find a needle in a very large haystack. Through combining big data, AI along with the special human touch, IT operations may become more dynamic, agile and efficient than ever before.”
Here’s an example: InterContinental Hotel Group, which includes Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and others, brought in an AI-enabled IT service desk agent (her name is Amelia) that can hold intelligent conversations, answer questions, perform common support tasks, and learn from experience. But IHG didn’t lay off staff in its newfound efficiency; it increased the number of employees from 35 to 115. Without the AI platform, they would need about 155 employees to meet demand.
Is Talent Scarce?
For certain high-tech jobs — like data scientists, front-end developers, machine learning and cybersecurity specialists — that seems to be the case, according to the Forbes article.
Rutgers University backs up this claim, stating that 79 percent of data scientists say there’s a shortage in their field. More people need to be trained and hired. IT leaders identify training, development and realignments of existing staff as their leading approach to tackling big data skills gaps.
If traditional recruiting is falling by the wayside as AI and big data emerge as a more clear method of finding people, the number of qualified candidates can be narrowed down for HR in the process. Now it’s just a matter of finding and training the right people for the more obscure jobs. It’s the humans who take the data and decide what to do with it.
