Technology is playing an increasing role in the selection and recruitment of candidates. As a business with over 10 years’ experience in the recruitment sector, Remit is aware of, and champions, the benefits that technology can bring.
However, at a time where the next technology revolution (4.0) is both hotly anticipated and controversial – only recently the Bank of England’s Chief Economist predicted 15 million jobs would be lost to automation – we are now re-focusing on the importance of human skills.
Especially hard hit by the skills gap and the uncertainty created in the run up to Brexit, the IT sector has struggled particularly to keep pace with recruitment demands. Almost a quarter of UK businesses believe that a shortage of digital skills is holding them back.
It’s no surprise that HR professionals and recruiters have begun handing high-volume CV reviews over to technology. Artificial intelligence (AI) has also been used in the sector for standardised job matching and in the creation of chatbots to aid candidates.
Inevitably ‘though there are always downsides to new advances in the more traditional way of doing things. AI is a case in point. It is designed to spot patterns of behaviour, such as conscious or unconscious bias and, while this could mean it’s a more favourable way to select candidates, others argue that, it just can’t be as accurate or discerning as the human ‘gut feel.’
Technology is also being used to help with background screening. But, so often, the human tendency to ‘override’ sometimes, for a very good reason, cannot be overlooked.
Finding the perfect balance is a constant battle. Yes, using technology to gather information works but only up to a point. After this, human intervention is crucial.
It’s often the way. What we fear most turns out to be less scary than we had at first anticipated.
For instance, companies collaborating with new disrupters, where they initially feared they would lose out. So, where technology platforms give the provider instant access to a new market, they will still require information or even consumers’ trust, in order to succeed. For instance, some recruitment firms are now working with technology platforms, enabling both to build deeper or more extensive relationships with candidates.
As Alex Cox from Hays says about the firm’s relationship with LinkedIn, “…it’s better to work with them and use them – and then at least work out how to defend yourself, and possibly even work out how to use it to your own advantage.”
It’s ironic that we are using technology to recruit in an age where candidates have higher expectations of the recruitment process and can actually challenge it.
In today’s world, especially with skills shortages, candidates are keen to have a good recruitment experience. Many are put off by overly lengthy processes, poor response times and a lack of human interaction. Most do their research about a business online and so, if the online presence is poor and there’s a lack of information, this has a detrimental impact.
As Kevin Green, CEO of industry trade body, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) says,
“A hiring decision is a two-way process. The candidates want to make a decision about whether this is the right role for them, whether they like their potential boss, whether the people in the team are people they can work with and that they think it’s the right environment, as well as the right set of tasks that they would be asked to do.”
Ultimately, a recruiter is much more able to ‘sell’ a job to a candidate. A face-to-face interview between the two parties will give the recruiter a great deal of information – even if most of it is body language – about the candidate’s aptitude, attitude and appetite for the job. No chatbot is able to do this, not yet.
Even where the company might be hiring for digital positions – security, big data, cloud-based digital roles or software development – the experience still needs to have a human element. And, this is critical in helping your company raise your brand above a competitor – even more so if your company is less well-known.
While a McKinsey report found that 5 percent of jobs will be taken by machine learning, around 60 percent will be changed by it.
And this is precisely the point. Knowing how far you can take the recruitment process using technology and at what point to bring in human intervention, will be the key to success. After all, who better to deal with the human element than a human.
If you would like to discuss your recruitment needs and how we can optimise our technology and people skills to help you, contact our Managing Director, Richard Morgan on richard@remithq.com or call him on 020 7183 6232.