Robots Find the Best Employee

Picture this: You’re hiring for a company with multiple open job roles that you need to fill as fast as possible. Despite what you’ve been hearing about the skilled worker shortage, you’ve fortunately been getting plenty of applicants via LinkedIn and Indeed, but it’s starting to seem like too many. There are 50, then 200, then 300, and they just keep coming. The clock is ticking on finding a candidate, but how are you supposed to find the candidate best equipped for the role (quickly!) without carefully reading through every single resume, assessing the applicant’s skillset, and moving them to step two of the selection process? Robots Find the Best Employee.

Recruitment takes time, and according to Glassdoor, an average job posting receives 250 resumes. As we know it today, employee recruitment originated amid World War II to fill labor gaps left by men joining war efforts. One thing remained the same throughout the years: recruitment depended on human interaction. That was until artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots advanced and gave way to robot recruiters.

“The dawn of robot recruiting has come and went, and people just haven’t caught up to the realization yet,” Ian Siegel, the CEO of ZipRecruiter, told The Guardian. 

As filling open positions departs from ringing telephones, mounds of resumes, and Rolodexes, recruitment robots are taking on various tasks to speed up the hiring process. But are these robots able to find the right employee to fill a role? And if so, what’s the trick to getting your resume past the human resource (HR) bots?

What Are Recruitment Robots?

While you may be picturing a robot like Hanson Robotics’ Sophia leading an interview, that’s not exactly what robot recruiters are. They’re chatbots taught on algorithms and used by companies on a case-by-case basis, depending on the role. After all, AI-powered systems aren’t here to replace a recruiter’s work; it’s the human who can see the twinkle in an interviewee’s eye when they are truly excited about the role.

According to an Oxford Analytica and Coleman Parkes survey, 77% of C-suite leaders believe AI will boost decision-making processes and improve employee productivity. This is especially pertinent in recruitment, where AI writes job descriptions, matches applicants to job postings, and even engages relevant job seekers via email or text.

Around 86% of companies are using virtual technology in the hiring process. It makes sense as some companies receive thousands of applications for a single vacancy, and robot recruiters can manage the more tedious work of combing through cover letters and resumes before passing qualified candidates off to human resources.

These chatbots are even capable of more complex processes — like assessing video answers and leading interviews. In fact, many companies use video to evaluate candidates before conducting formal interviews. To take the burden off hiring managers, businesses are investing in assessment algorithms that track verbal movements and facial responses to gauge confidence and assuredness when finding the ideal prospect.

Companies Using Recruiting Robots

As specialized software takes on the task of evaluating candidates, recruiters hope to get a few things out of using generative AI. According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Future of Recruiting report, 74% of recruiters hope that AI will automate repetitive tasks; 67% think it will make it faster to source candidates; and 59% believe it can make it easier to engage potential employees.

A few companies have already found success using recruitment robots in their hiring process, including:

• IBM: The Watson Candidate Assistant AI robot helps employees in IBM’s HR department check off specific skills on candidates’ resumes before moving them to the next round in the hiring process.
• Citizens Bank: Using an AI-powered career coach named Myca, the HR department at Citizens Bank fills training gaps and open positions internally by identifying certain skills and career goals.
• L’Oréal: The leading cosmetics company uses Mya Systems throughout its entire hiring process, from job search to onboarding. Machine learning engineers built the recruitment robot’s conversational AI to use natural language processes (NLP) to engage in fluid conversation.
• Unilever: After integrating HireVue’s AI-powered hiring platform into its recruitment process, the consumer goods company had a 90% reduction in time to hire and a 16% increase in hiring diversity. HireVue’s proprietary algorithm uses voice and facial recognition software to find ideal candidates based on tone, body language, and vocabulary.

Why Use Recruiting Robots? Robots Find the Best Employee?

While generative AI will help recruiters focus on the more human aspect of hiring, there are various pros and cons to using recruiting robots.

Pros of Recruiting Robots

1. Shortening Time to Hire

The hiring process can take as little as a week and up to 30 or more days, depending on a company’s process. This includes crafting job posts, advertising open positions, evaluating applications, conducting interviews, and making a decision.

By using recruiting robots, businesses can speed up the time to hire by using AI to manage the entire process up to the interview or decision-making stage.

2. Boosting Efficiency

Robot recruiters can get qualified candidates to human resources much faster, which means employees can reinvest time in other focus areas, including improving the interview process or creating training guides for new employees.

How robot recruiters are used will depend on the job vacancy, but, in general, AI can save employees valuable time.

3. Engaging in Skills-Based Hiring

When someone has a pristine resume, it’s easy to assume that years of experience represent how qualified someone is. While recruitment robots can’t entirely solve this issue, the AI-powered algorithm can be trained to prioritize skills over traditional experience.

For example, take these two applicants for a CNC machining position:

• Applicant #1 has an engineering degree from the University of Kentucky, five years of experience as a CNC machinist, and applicable leadership experience.
• Applicant #2 has no college degree, three years as an apprentice under a professional CNC machinist, seven years of experience on the floor overall, and recently completed an intensive management training course to transfer their skills to a leadership role.

The robot recruiter’s algorithm can be taught to focus on skills rather than education achievements to hire more diverse employees.

4. Eliminating Bias

Unconscious biases can get in the way when trying to find the best employee for an open job role.

Fortunately, recruitment algorithms can take bias out of the equation and even be taught to focus on diverse hiring — whether it be gender, race, age, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or non-traditional experience and transferable skills. Because the algorithm can be taught to focus on word choice, experience, and confidence, potential biases won’t get in the way.

Unfortunately, bias can also be a con of robot recruiters, especially when it comes to how it grades body language and facial expressions on an “employability scale.”

“It’s a profoundly disturbing development that we have proprietary technology that claims to differentiate between a productive worker and a worker who isn’t fit, based on their facial movements, their tone of voice, their mannerisms,” said Meredith Whittaker, a co-founder of the AI Now Institute.

Cons of Recruiting Robots

1. Learned Biases

While AI can eliminate some biases, algorithms find patterns in prior behavior. This means that AI can learn human biases in the recruiting process, even if they are unconscious.

For example, Amazon had to scrap its AI recruiting tool in 2018 after it showed preferences for male applicants. While the e-commerce giant was looking for quick ways to find top talent, previous hiring behaviors over a 10-year period taught the robot recruiter that because most applications came from men, they were likely more qualified for the role.

According to a Harvard Business School survey, 88% of executives said they knew their algorithmic tools rejected qualified candidates.

2. Lacking Regulation

In an article for Bloomberg Law, Chris Opfer writes: “As companies turn to artificial intelligence for help making hiring and promotion decisions, contract negotiations between employers and vendors selling algorithms will be dominated by an untested legal question: Who’s liable when a robot discriminates?”

Companies are held responsible for any biases. In turn, they must comply with any laws and regulations on using tests and assessments for hiring. However, there isn’t much federal regulation, and generally, companies don’t have to disclose if they’re using AI for hiring.

Some states, however, have taken the laws into their own hands. For example, in 2019, the Illinois House of Representatives passed the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act (AIVIA). The act says that job seekers must be notified if AI is evaluating their applications and how AI will evaluate them.

3. Eliminating Human Touch

While AI-powered bots can take some work off the hands of recruiters, robots just don’t have that human touch. Siegel estimates that three-quarters of resumes submitted in the U.S. are read by AI algorithms.

While this technology can definitely speed up the hiring process, it’s possible that candidates are being overlooked by coded algorithms rather than being given the chance to communicate with an actual person and express their eagerness and ability.

How to Get Your Resume Past the HR Bots

Now that you know it might be happening, there are a few ways to tailor your resume to get past the HR bot and into the (virtual) hands of a human resources specialist.

These are truly best practices, no matter who is reviewing your resume.

• Make your resume machine-readable: It can be tempting to try to make your resume stand out, but avoid using images or special characters. Another way to make your resume clear to HR bots is by using short and declarative sentences.
• Clearly list skills and certifications: Having a clear, condensed list of your skills and certifications will go a long way when a robot recruiter is scanning your application.
• Include keywords from the job description: It’s important to tailor your resume based on the job you’re applying for, but this is especially true when it comes to keywords. Using the job description, add relevant keywords to your resume that fit your previous experience.
• List your competencies in computer applications: According to Joe Fuller, a Harvard Business professor, for entry-level and administrative jobs, it can be helpful to list competencies in Microsoft suite applications.

As you prepare for your next job hunt, consider formulating an elevator pitch, which is a quick and personal way to sell yourself. Not only will this hold up against a robot, but it’s the perfect way to concisely explain your skillset to a busy recruiter.

Source: Robots Find the Best Employee

https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/recruitment-robots-thoughts-after-dark/

https://www.techedmagazine.com/category/news-by-industry/

Robots Find the Best Employee