The Long and Short of What TA Leaders Expect of AI and Automation Vol. 1

Aida Fazylova
Mar 8, 2019 2:06:26 AM

AI is evolving and Talent Acquisition Industry leaders cannot deny its ever-increasing impact. With its rapid development, we decided to reach far and wide to see what people are saying about it. Will it help recruiting efforts? Is automation the end of human interaction? Will any of this matter in a matter of years? Or has AI already integrated so well that we won’t even notice?

The Prompt:

What Talent Acquisition areas will be most impacted by AI by the year 2020? There are several popular areas that repeatedly are mentioned –

1) Diversity and Inclusion in TA (eliminating bias);

2) Workflow Automation of repetitive tasks;

3) Increasing employee engagement and retention by using Predictive Analytics.

How will #AI impact talent acquisition in the next few years? See what the experts say:Tweet This!

On Recruiting and Sourcing

“To expand deeper, I feel the areas most impacted will be candidate sourcing and the CV/Resume. Candidate Sourcing in the context we as TA professionals view it will be completely automated. AI and machine learning will eventually provide everyone with a digital footprint that will include one’s employment history, along with many other items of information pulled from public information… With regulations in EMEA such as GDPR, we can already realize the «collapse of the paper resume.» Despite AI and automation, the art of live conversations will become more critical than ever to win talent.

— Tony Cornett, Senior Talent Acquisition Leader at Cloud Business Group at SAP

Adopting AI in recruitment may have a few advantages. One of them is that it can reduce bias compared to a process based solely on human selection, potentially leading to more diverse hiring. An important consideration is having a careful look at how algorithms (designed by humans) are built. Wisely created AI can help evade the bias trap.

— Maria Lucila Cuello, Talent Acquisition Director at Latin America at Mondelēz International

I would also add college hiring as a potential target area. Those pools can be deep and very similar, but the technology could be structured in such a way to sort the target schools by function, skill set and that could be a huge asset to organizations.

— Chris Smith, HR Business Partner and Talent Acquisition Lead at ConvaTec

Along with the automation these tools also decrease the time to offer/hire which is a huge benefit in the very competitive healthcare arena.

— Phil Pelleriti, Director Talent Acquisition at UNM Hospitals

I believe we in the HR world will be impacted the most by Workflow Automation of Repetitive tasks. I think AI will add to the ability for Initial phone screens and scheduling candidates for face to face interview.

— Anthony Lizano, Director of Talent Acquisition & Compliance at Spirit Airlines

One area that will see more refinement is the communication between those seeking candidates and those seeking jobs. [There is] still a lot that can be performed in this area that will improve and streamline the process… Imagine for example making it more simple to direct email traffic — AI can help alleviate this task immensely — and it wouldn’t be isolated to Staffing niche, this would be applicable to any industry that relies on email as a communication tool.

— Robert Cellich, Talent Acquisition at GENERAL DYNAMICS

One area I predict to be heavily impacted by AI, is the actual process of job search itself. This ties into creating a better candidate experience, as well as using technology to generate more internal and external applicants using AI technology that is personalized to each candidate. Jobs that are a perfect fit will come straight to the candidate, opposed to having the candidate find the job.

— Brent T. Ugol, Executive Analyst at Abbott

I think AI will reform recruiting. The keywords on a resume will no longer be enough to get an applicant noticed. AI will get into many more personal attributes and in doing so look for someone that fits a team not just fill a position.

— Scott Pendleton, PeopleSoft Project Manager and Functional Lead Talent, Acquisition Manager / Candidate Gateway at Pioneer Business Solutions, Inc

I believe that AI will help in sourcing better candidates and help with predictive information; however, there will always be the human element because ultimately humans make decisions.

— Elizabeth (Garcia) Jones, Regional HR Director at Walmart

I would think that the repetitive task aspect would be a big one. Another, which is related, could be high volume recruiting— call center, security guards, and retail. I would also think that using AI to review your report data could be advantageous as well.

— Chris Reed, Director of Talent Acquisition at Americas Company at Laird

I would expect AI to become commonplace in the sourcing phase of recruitment, auto-matching CVs to Job Reqs in an increasingly intelligent and reliable way through machine learning. In addition, I expect automated behavioral assessment to become much more widely used and potentially even being a leading match criteria rather than a «nice-to have» for select roles. This would be enabled by custom-calibration against high performers in key job categories specific to an individual company. Both of these will improve speed, quality, cost-efficiency and diversity.

— Tim Streeter, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Whirlpool

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to dramatically improve the recruiting process particularly in proactive recruiting and recruitment segmentation. However, it’s greatest risk is in companies deploying artificial intelligence without truly knowing what good looks (behaviours, capabilities, and competencies) in positions. AI is a tool, and not a process and if used as a tool with direction and intention, it will have tremendous positive impact. If used incorrectly, it could burn down recruiting credibility and the recruitment brand.

— Jimmy Giles, Senior Director, Organization & Talent Development at Whataburger

AI in Talent Acquisition could be an effective option to identify and source talent from diverse backgrounds while simultaneously eliminating the likelihood of unconscious (or conscious) bias. That’s ambitious, my I’m hopeful, since our previous attempts—and ‘regular’ intelligence—has been minimally successful.

— Angel Stewart, Director of Talent Management at The Robert Toigo Foundation

There is a lot of talk of using AI to eliminate bias from the hiring and selection process. This can be useful I suppose, but the algorithm is still man-made so it is hard to tell. At the very least, I am hoping it diversifies the candidate pools and help hiring managers understand the art of pinpointing transferable skills when applicants come from various industries and backgrounds.

— Tiffany Richardson, Deputy Director of Talent Acquisition and Special Projects at NYC Department of Education

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