Recruitment in the age of artificial intelligence

Roméo Christian Laleye, Digital Consultant VISEO & Quentin Bardet, General Secretary of the Executive Committee, talk about the automation of the HR function via Artificial Intelligence.

Big data, analytics, digitalization, predictive... the ordinary terms reserved for the digital marketing revolution are now being introduced into the HR department. CV selection, sourcing, skills assessment, personality analysis, making appointments, interviews and candidate relations: very few tasks at the heart of the recruitment function seem to escape the automation movement that digital and cognitive technologies allow. Also, by dint of seeing chatbots and Artificial Intelligence claiming to take a growing place in recruitment, we can wonder about the future of humans in this function: will you be recruited by a robot for your next job?

Indeed, digital opportunities are enormous - tasks in the recruitment process are repetitive and worthless and digital has its place to support the acquisition of the best talent by companies.

Artificial Intelligence, a solution to better identify the best candidates and save time?

Ask a recruiter about his most tedious tasks, he will undoubtedly answer you the sorting of CVs. Although Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) now allow for fine-tuning searches, particularly by keywords, recruiters must always study a large volume of applications to make their choice - on the basis, moreover, of a biased judgment of the unconscious prejudices they may have towards candidates. Faced with this scenario, the use of Artificial Intelligence will help recruiters go faster, be more effective and greatly reduce the risk of recruiters' biases: it can ignore the age, gender, social origin and degree of the candidate. Thanks to algorithms, expertise, experience and skills can be quickly identified and the most relevant applications will emerge. Also, Artificial Intelligence will be able to analyze candidates' word choices, language and facial expressions, in order to assess their emotions and identify the main personality traits needed for the position. This time saving behavioural analysis will allow the right profiles to be filtered more quickly and will make the recruiter more efficient by giving him additional information, notably on the success rate in the position or the fit with the company culture. This will allow the recruiter to rely on more objective assessments of candidates before deciding whether or not to devote time to a physical interview. According to Harvard Business Review, the reliability of Artificial Intelligence is 25% higher than that of man. Recruitment performance can therefore be optimized with AI.

Risks for the recruitment profession?

Of course, these technological breakthroughs can be a risk, like any tool misused. But we believe that Artificial Intelligence will not so much replace the recruiter as serve as a decision-making aid in the recruitment process: it will allow him to save time so that he can concentrate on tasks with high added value and on more complex subjects without ever taking his place.

In the end, an "augmented recruiter" is taking shape; like the banker, supported by his robot-advisor, the customer relations department, preceded by the chatbot, or the worker of tomorrow, integrated into factory 4.0, the recruiter of tomorrow will gain in productivity thanks to the automation of tasks without added value and in relevance thanks to the processing of mass information to enlighten him. He will thus be able to refocus on what seems eminently human and of high value to us: set a strategy for the acquisition and management of talent, assess the adequacy of a personality and culture of a department and of the company, negotiate fair remuneration and dictate to artificial intelligence what he wants. A robotized process at the service of an enlightened human appreciation: the future will necessarily be algorithmic AND human. So, ready to submit your resume to artificial intelligence soon?