3 New Applicant Screening Tools You Need To Know

Adrian Dixon

October 25, 2017

According to a recent SHRM/Mercer survey, only 20% of recruiters said they were confident in their employers’ ability to assess applicants.

applicant screening tools

This lack of confidence in traditional screening methods has given rise to some recent headline-grabbing innovations.

Here are three applicant screening tools that are getting a lot of attention right now.

1. Facebook’s resume posting feature

Facebook’s foray into applicant screening means LinkedIn is no longer the only game in town.

According to Jobvite’s annual recruiting survey, 67% of candidates use Facebook as a resource during their job search. Facebook is the second most popular social network for recruiters to screen candidates after LinkedIn. 

Facebook hasn’t been ignoring this activity.

To facilitate its recruiting function even further, it’s currently testing a new resume upload feature that allows users to share their work experience on their profiles.

This feature comes soon after Facebook added integration with ZipRecruiter in September and the ability to post jobs on company pages in February.

While Facebook’s 2 billion users far outnumber LinkedIn’s 467 million members, it’ll remain to be seen if Facebook can evolve beyond its perception as a personal rather than professional social network.

2. Google’s ATS for SMBs

In addition to all the talk about artificial intelligence, the buzz at this year’s HR Tech Conference was Google’s entry into the recruitment tech market with their ATS.

Geared for the SMB market, Google Hire is an ATS integrated with the G Suite. With more than 3 million businesses currently using G Suite, the potential market for Google Hire is significant.

According to the #HRWINS Future of HR Technology Report, the biggest challenge employers face with their HR tech is integration between different systems.

Hire’s baked in integration with Gmail and Google Calendar alone might prove to be a huge game changer.

Google Hire comes at the heels of the Google for Jobs launch, which was created to find better search results between job seekers’ skills and preferences and a job’s requirements.

With Google’s unprecedented access to data on both sides of the recruiting equation, Hire is either going to make a big impact on the ATS market or disappear with a whimper like some of Google’s former products.

3. Ideal’s AI screening software

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being applied everywhere these days to streamline or automate work processes.

Applicant screening is no exception.

Recruiting software like Ideal that uses AI promises to improve applicant screening in two major ways.

First, AI can be applied to non-conventional datasets such as video and phone interviews in order to extract insights on candidates’ personality, skills and cognitive ability.

Second, machine learning algorithms can be used to combine candidate data such as resumes, social profiles, psychometric assessments, and interviews to analyze how qualified the candidate is for a role.

Along with its potential to improve candidate quality, AI is already proving to be an advantage for recruiters in terms of reducing time to fill by up to 75%.

There’s no doubt that AI will change recruiting.

AI for screening is already being used by major retailers like Indigo and Hot Topic.

How well AI software demonstrates it can screen applicants as good as – or better – than human recruiters will determine how fast this technology gets adopted.