How to Harness the Power of AI and Automation in Talent Acquisition

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation have emerged as a game-changer in various industries, and recruiting is no exception.

If you are in the talent/recruiting field, you may wonder how you can leverage AI and automation to not only streamline your job but also create a positive impact on the candidate experience. I believe that we will always need the human element in recruiting. However, we can automate some tasks and processes to be a more strategic partner for our hiring managers in finding top talent.

In this post, I will show you several ways that we have harnessed the power of AI and automation to improve the candidate’s experience and optimize the hiring process.

AI & Automation Tools to Optimize Your Recruiting Strategy

In recent years, DISHER Talent Solutions has invested in two major pieces of technology. We switched our Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to Lever, and we invested in hireEZ to help us source prospects.

In Lever, we can create an automated nurture campaign that goes out to every prospect that we add. We can personalize it to fit each passive candidate so that we are still highlighting why we are interested in speaking to them, but it’s a set-it-and-forget-it process. This has allowed us to focus our efforts on sourcing and filling a robust pipeline to find qualified candidates.

In addition, we utilize Grayscale. This is a texting system that also allows us to set up nurture campaigns. Through email, texting, and phone calls, we can get to prospects faster. There are many excellent tools out there that can be utilized to streamline your process. Others include ZoomInfo, ContactOut, and SeekOut.

Chat GPT is a free tool that we are also leveraging. By utilizing Chat GPT, we can now explore more engaging ways to reach out and attract top prospects. We can develop Boolean strings to help with X-ray searches, create new email and texting templates, and help with interview questions. This does not mean we just copy/paste whatever Chat GPT says. It is an additional tool in our toolbox, that we can utilize as recruiters. Recently, SeekOut came out with a blog around ways to utilize Chat GPT. Find more helpful resources here.

Automation can Improve Timeliness and Touchpoints

One of the primary reasons candidates drop out during the hiring process is it takes too long. As soon as you change a prospect to a candidate, the clock is ticking. According to hireEZ, if the hiring process extends beyond two weeks, the risk of losing a potential hire increases to almost 30%. This same report also states that almost 55% of candidates drop out of the hiring process because they accepted another offer.

One way to increase your time to fill is sending out timely updates to candidates. Whether you have progress to share or not, automated emails keep candidates engaged and informed throughout the process, reducing the chances of losing them to competing offers.

AI can Improve Your Data and Reporting

One of the big questions clients often ask our team is, “How long will it take to fill this position?” While there is always industry data out there, hiring managers want to know how long it is going to take our team. We have invested in Power BI to use our data to know our average days to fill. We also use Power BI to create weekly reports for our hiring managers.

Our weekly reports include each step of the process that candidates are in, a heat map of where candidates are located, new candidates added to the pipeline, and where we are finding top talent whether it’s through our own ATS, HireEZ, LinkedIn, etc.

By using data, we can become a stronger strategic partner for our hiring managers. We can give them an accurate understanding of the market and provide increased transparency around our hiring practices.

AI presents numerous opportunities to improve the candidate’s experience and optimize the hiring process. DISHER Talent Solutions has researched and implemented a variety of AI tools to improve our data and reporting with our customers and the timeliness and touchpoints with the prospects and candidates we work with.

While AI will never replace our live face-to-face interactions, personal phone calls, and onsite visits that set us apart, we continue to explore new ways to make the talent acquisition experience better.

Our driving mantra is to Make a Positive Difference with our customers and candidates we have the privilege of serving. With AI, we can continue to optimize our processes to deliver Talent Acquisition excellence.