Recruiting automation continues to gain popularity in talent acquisition, transforming how organizations attract, assess, and hire candidates. However, despite its many advantages, there are still several misconceptions surrounding recruiting automation, recruiting automation software, and how to measure the impact of automation. In this blog post, we will challenge the top five common misconceptions surrounding recruitment automation and introduce the true potential of automating your recruitment process.
Recruiting automation is a term that refers to the use of any technology to automate one or more tasks in the recruitment process. Some companies employ automation on a minor level to
source candidates and schedule events, while others use automation software to run up to 90% of their hiring process.
The use of candidate recruiting automation technologies is all about finding ways to increase competitive advantage in hiring. This can be automated workflows that increase recruiter productivity, reporting software that highlights opportunities to reduce time-to-fill, and even AI technology that can review and grade candidate resumes. The opportunities to automate are vast, which is what leads to the misconceptions surrounding this technology.
One prevailing misconception for many industries is that automation software aims to replace humans entirely. The reality is that these programs are meant to increase human efficiency and reduce instances of human error.
For recruiters, automation can reduce the time needed to conduct tasks such as posting jobs to different groups, screening candidate resumes for different qualifications, and scheduling interviews with potential hires.
With these repetitive tasks now handled through automation managed by the recruiter, they may focus on more strategic aspects of the hiring process, such as building better engagements with customers and candidates.
Individual recruiters may be hesitant to adopt recruiting automation due to the perception that automated communication and messaging may come across cold or unengaging with potential candidates.
The truth is that this can occur if a recruiter uses a system that doesn’t enable personalization tokens. Personalization tokens help recruiters use their data to shape the conversation between their software and candidates.
Using the appropriate tools enables recruiters to build automated messaging for repetitive discussions in the recruitment process. This can include invitations to apply for open positions, requests to schedule a meeting and job offers.
With these automated messages, recruiters have time to engage with the right candidates on a deeper level, fostering meaningful connections and improving overall candidate satisfaction.
This misconception gained a national spotlight when it was found that Amazon’s AI recruiting tool showed a bias against women. While concerning the fact was that the bias in this specific recruiting tool was unintentionally created from the data they used. Since the majority of data from resumes were based on male profiles, they had taught the system that, for this company, male candidates were preferred over females.
In actuality, automation is a great tool for understanding unconscious bias that may exist in the recruitment process or within an organization.
By setting up clear criteria and leveraging machine learning algorithms, recruiters can ensure that candidates are evaluated based on their qualifications and relevant skills rather than subjective factors. Regular audits and human oversight are necessary to ensure the fairness and integrity of the automated processes.
Many organizations hesitate to adopt recruiting automation because it requires a significant investment of time and effort to implement. While it’s true that proper implementation of any system requires planning and adjustments, modern recruiting automation tools are designed to be user-friendly and intuitive.
Many providers also offer support, training, and customization to help organizations seamlessly integrate this automation with other devices in their HR tech stack to better processes, including employee onboarding, timekeeping, and payroll, to name a few.
While there is no limit to the task that can be automated, there is a limit to the tasks which should be automated. While these automation systems strive to eliminate the potential for human error, the fact is that there are many parts of the recruitment process that need humans.
When choosing what to automate, recruiting firms need to ask the following questions:
If the answer to one or more of these questions is yes, then it may be time to review how the process can be automated with the right software.
While thousands of software solutions claim to be able to address the many challenges faced by talent acquisition professionals, the fact is that there are types of systems that make more sense to add to your tech stack over others.
Applicant Tracking Systems:
Companies use ATS systems to automate sourcing potential candidates, posting current openings, and onboarding new hires. The automation these software solutions deliver is all about enabling recruiters to properly track active candidates and the status of open positions they are actively recruiting for.
Candidate Relationship Management Systems:
CRM software is designed to automate how recruiters’ market to prospective candidates and communicate with current candidates. These systems can provide tools for posting on social channels, email blasts, or sending automated text messages.
Vendor Management Systems:
More often, a VMS is software used not by a recruiter but by their client. Vendor Management Systems helps corporate clients send open positions to multiple recruiting firms through a vendor portal. This software allows recruiters to automate how they recruit and submit candidates for open positions within larger companies.
Candidate Sourcing Tools:
Candidate sourcing tools are often used to pull candidate records from different job boards automatically. These tools allow recruiters to set their criteria for an ideal candidate before the system automatically pulls in resumes and documents for candidates that meet their search criteria from sites such as LinkedIn, Monster, or Indeed. These tools help recruiters quickly build their candidate database with just a few clicks.
Time Tracking Software:
Time tracking software is a great automation tool for recruiters who place temporary, contractor, or temp-to-hire positions, as it enables the recruiter to contract and track their candidate’s hours before invoicing their customers.
With SmartSearch, recruiters can access an enterprise-level solution to automate their recruitment processes. SmartSearch users can access powerful tools, including an ATS, CRM, VMS, candidate sourcing tools, time tracking systems, job board integrations, and powerful reporting tools, all in one easy-to-implement system. If you’d like to see how SmartSearch can empower your team with smarter automation, schedule a demo of the industry’s best recruiting solution.
