Charles Hipps is the Founder and CEO of Oleeo, an award-winning provider of innovative talent acquisition technology.
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Released in November 2022 and gaining popularity in 2023, OpenAI's communication and self-writing service ChatGPT has left many professionals wondering how modern artificial intelligence (AI) could impact their careers. While it has many limitations and is facing legal scrutiny, AI models are developing fast, which means the next AI writing service may be even more effective.
The increased development and popularity of AI could change how industries across the globe conduct business, including recruitment. Whether you see this as fortunate or unfortunate, we can't stop change—we can only adapt to it.
How could AI technology impact the recruitment landscape and the future of HR work? Here are the developments I expect we'll see on the horizon.
1. Enhanced Communication With Recruitment Platforms
In addition to generating writing and artwork, one of the most popular forms of AI in development today involves voices. AI software and tools are learning to better understand and write human words using voice recognition. Some of the most recent examples include drafting transcripts from podcasts or automatically including subtitles for videos. Simultaneously, other AI tools are using individuals' voice patterns to create realistic voice audio, further bridging the gap between AI-generated voices and our own.
AI voice assistants like Siri and Alexa aren't necessarily new. However, an enhanced understanding of language provides a step-change opportunity for improvement and new possibilities for what can be achieved in the future, particularly regarding voice activation.
It is highly possible that in the future, you could be able to better communicate with your applicant tracking system by simply verbalizing actions to take, like searching for candidates. This could save time and reduce the risk of skipping or forgetting details since humans typically think faster than we type.
2. Capabilities Beyond Semantic Search
Talent rediscovery search tools use complicated algorithms to surface the most relevant candidates. One of the more recent developments in these search algorithms is semantic search.
Semantic search considers synonyms and other uses of the words from the searcher based on their apparent intent rather than by highlighting keywords, as search engines have previously done. This type of search can improve the relevance of results. This also prevents candidates from trying to game the system by simply flooding their résumés with keywords.
Large language models (LLM) go far beyond synonyms. If this is applied to searching and sifting through candidates and applications, this level of language understanding could change both how searches are conducted and the quality of results, making it easier for employers to search for, screen, research and select the best candidates.
3. Greater Engagement With Candidates
From my perspective, one of the most significant potential impacts of AI is how much admin work it could save professionals. While AI will never replace the authenticity of writing something yourself and is too factually unreliable to be taken with high credibility, there's a lot that AI may be able to do to help you improve communication, particularly in future releases as the technology continues to develop.
A great example of this is writing emails. In recruitment, you send countless emails to candidates, which in itself can be time-consuming and repetitive. On top of this, writing every email in the same way can make your voice sound stale or impersonal, which can reflect poorly on your organization and potentially put candidates off. However, creating and personalizing each email can be time-consuming.
Embracing AI for writing could help you to quickly personalize your emails and make your job adverts and online communications stand out. Consider using AI to create engaging ways to phrase ideas, discuss topics and break the ice. While you should still thoroughly review every message you send, AI has the potential to simplify, speed up and improve your communication with applicants.
With the right controls, it is possible for recruitment to become more “chatty,” as bots answer more FAQs, ask screening questions and accept applications.
4. Data-Driven Results
Best-in-class recruiters are striving to be data-driven to ensure they make unbiased decisions informed by facts and expert insights. Today, for many, this means improved visibility to guide us in our day-to-day recruitment and strategic reports to highlight opportunities for step-change improvements.
AI is the latest cutting-edge form of analytics. AI algorithms are built on data and have the ability to process vast amounts of information, incorporate expert advice and make data-driven recommendations, whether that be understanding and actioning our instructions, identifying candidates that fit the job’s requirements or communicating in an engaging manner.
As with any dashboard or analytics, we need to check that the conclusion reached is sound before it is actioned. These new forms of AI appear poised to be valuable assistants, augmenting our knowledge and enabling us to make more equitable, expert and data-driven decisions.
Stay Ahead Of The Change
Whatever the future of recruiting holds, HR leaders and recruiters can stand ready to adapt to the new reality. While AI has the potential to positively impact the recruiting space, it's important to remember the human element needed to realize these developments.
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