Recruiters don’t get enough credit for how dramatically the field of talent acquisition has changed in just the past decade. From job boards and social recruiting to employer branding and recruitment marketing, talent-acquisition professionals have navigated multiple waves of technology transformation in order to stay competitive in the war for talent.
Now a new set of technologies, powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, are demanding recruiters to climb another learning curve. Referred to as “recruiting automation,” these solutions promise to automate the more tedious aspects of the recruiting process.
One of the main drivers of recruiting automation is the shift from inbound to outbound approaches for talent acquisition. As any recruiter or hiring manager can attest, gone are the days of posting available positions to job boards and waiting for candidates to apply. With unemployment at a 17-year low and candidate information more readily available than ever before, job seekers themselves spend less time applying and instead wait for the jobs to come to them. Add to that, MRINetwork recently found that the market is 90 percent candidate-driven as recruiters scramble to win the hearts of passive candidates.
As the need for more outbound recruiting increases, the demands on recruiters to work faster, smarter, and better to win over top talent have only intensified. The biggest challenge facing most recruiters is they simply don’t have enough time to execute outbound recruiting at scale. With recruiters reporting that they spend an average of 13 hours a week sourcing for a single role, it’s no wonder talent acquisition teams are turning to recruiting automation for help. Automation technology has been helping other departments scale for decades. The same artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics that are helping marketing teams target new leads and sales teams manage customers can now be applied to candidate recruiting as well.
These tools can significantly impact recruiting teams’ productivity. Because productivity increases, teams using recruiting automation technology often drive down their time-to-hire and cost-per-hire as well. Given that the average time to hire in the U.S. is 42 days, and the average cost per day of an unfilled position is $500 a day, any improvement in time to fill is a moneymaker for an organization. When recruiting teams use recruiting automation tools they can reduce their time to hire between seven to 10 percent, which add up to major savings for companies and increased efficiency for recruiting teams.
Many hear the term “automation” and fear their jobs may become obsolete, though typically the opposite is true. Companies using recruiting automation to augment the capacity of their talent acquisition team report that they are much more efficient and freed up to spend more time on the critical face-to-face human aspects of recruiting.
Tasks to Automate Using Recruiting Automation Tools
Sourcing
Companies can automate the process of identifying passive candidates that have the skills and backgrounds you’re looking for. Recruiters spend more than 13 hours a week sourcing for a single role so streamlining this task has the potential to cut down on time to hire and increase productivity.
Outreach
The same companies also have the capabilities to automate outreach as well as follow ups. Using these tools, recruiters can increase their candidate engagement and spend their time selling the candidate on the job once they’ve already been hooked.
Candidate Experience
Mya, Olivia (Paradox), and AllyO are all using chatbot technology to automate things like candidate screenings and applicant status updates to help companies scale and streamline great candidate experiences without over-tasking their teams. These tools can also help standardize the candidate experience so all potential hires receive the same standard of attention.
Interview Scheduling
This is one of the most tedious tasks that recruiting automation can take off of your plate. Companies like Clara Labs, GoodTime.io, Calendly, and X.ai are working to automate this task so recruiters can focus on preparing candidates and setting them up for success.
Candidate Nurturing
The right candidate is out there, but they may not be ready for an interview. To help warm them up, recruiters can lean on CRM (candidate relationship management) technologies like Smashfly, Avature, Beamery, and Yello to automate emails and other communication touch points to help candidates learn about a company and why they would want to work there.
With the routine tasks taken care of by technology, recruiters have the opportunity to become strategic experts in their roles. Just like sales automation tools like Salesforce didn’t replace sales teams, recruiting automation won’t eliminate recruiters. In fact, recruiting automation has the potential to add value to recruiters’ roles within organizations and, at the end of the day, make their jobs more fun.