Leveraging AI To Improve the Candidate Experience

Here are the benefits of incorporating AI into the HR and recruitment processes.

March 22, 2023

How to Improve the Candidate Experience Using AI

Using AI in the resume screening process benefits the candidate and the employer by allowing for better discovery and more precision in the initial matchmaking, says Alfons Staerk, global senior director of recruiting technology and Experience at BCG.

Today’s top talent isn’t just seeking another job or move in their career; they’re looking for a workplace rooted in purpose—and not just in the traditional sense. Purpose today aligns with one’s values, empowers opportunities to do meaningful work, enables diverse and inclusive environments with continuous room for growth, and is championed by the necessary flexibility to balance it all with the lives we lead. Today, to attract top talent, it takes companies with a purpose that “goes beyond,” It all starts with applying a modern approach to the candidate experience.

What is a modern approach to talent recruitment, you ask? To put it in the simplest way, a recruiter using AI will “win” against a recruiter using traditional approaches alone. Why? Because combining innovative technology with a human touch creates a more streamlined, personalized, relevant experience that keeps candidates engaged from application to interview—it is the future of recruiting. However, the formula for successful outcomes is defined by determining how to seamlessly weave together AI technology and human touch to create a cohesive experience for all candidates —also known as high tech, high touch (HT2), BCG’s approach to the synergy between tech and humans. 

How to Create Personalized Candidate Experiences Using AI

When implemented the right way, companies can reap a lot of the benefits of AI. A recent study found that 87% of AI leadersOpens a new window believe the tool will allow companies to obtain or sustain a competitive business advantage, including in their recruiting efforts. As tech talent turnover, layoffs, and shortages continue to rage on, companies must ensure that their recruiting and onboarding processes are efficient, seamless, and tailored for each candidate. 

A high-tech, high-touch approach that uses AI can help to automate specific heavy-lift repetitive processes, such as resume screening, which allows more time for the human element of candidate identification, like getting to know candidates personally, building relationships and getting insights into important questions: What motivates them? What kind of culture are they looking for in an employer? What are they passionate about? In addition to creating more time for the personal touch, using AI in the resume screening process benefits the candidate and the employer by allowing for better discovery and more precision in the initial matchmaking. 

Employers can find the best candidates for a particular role, and candidates can find job postings that best match what they are looking for. Talent wants to work at a company that empowers them to pursue their passions and be their best selves at work, at home, and in life. Having more time to get to the heart of the person behind the resume can uncover hidden gems that otherwise traditional methods of recruiting might miss due to time constraints and heavy workloads.

See More: Personalizing the Candidate Experience Just Got a Whole Lot Harder and More Creative

Balancing the Risks and Rewards with Tech 

How AI is used in recruitment can make or break the entire candidate process and experience. A recent survey found that 63 percentOpens a new window of job seekers would reject a job offer because of a bad experience during the recruitment process. Candidates don’t want to feel like they can only talk to an AI chatbot or are being screened, selected, and deemed worthy by an algorithm. Companies must get it right, given the risks associated with a bad recruiting experience. As technological innovations advance, however, it’s essential to strike a balance and ensure that tools like AI are being used to empower and augment recruiters and candidates—not replace them.

Companies also need to ensure that AI is being leveraged ethically. Firstly, recruiting teams handle sensitive data, like candidate addresses, phone numbers, and employment history. Like consumers trust retailers with their credit card data, candidates must trust that their sensitive data is managed securely. 

Secondly, ensuring that the technology is not amplifying or creating bias during initial screenings are additional checkpoints to consider before implementing new technology. While AI and automation can make massive strides in improving recruiting efficiency, the tools must be used to keep data safe and in line with stringent data privacy regulations and ensure that opportunities remain equitable for all candidates. 

Careful Considerations for Recruiters

One misconception of AI’s role in recruiting is that it will eliminate bias. In a vacuum, this could be true, but one of the critical pitfalls of using AI is the unintended human bias behind whoever built it. Whether unconscious or conscious biases, the builders of AI tools build their algorithms as the world around them. By ignoring a candidate’s age, gender, and race, AI for recruiting reduces unconscious bias. Any human bias in your recruiting process, even if it’s unconscious, could be learned by AI if developed without due diligence. Most critically, the training sets need to be accurate. Proper controls and audits within the AI model are needed to help avoid learned AI biases and promote diversity in the candidate pool.

AI technologies aren’t inherently good or bad. All companies design and use AI differently. AI requires large data sets to continuously learn how to interpret information as a human’s intelligence would accurately. For example, AI that uses machine learning needs a lot of data to learn how to screen resumes as accurately as a human recruiter. This can mean several hundred to thousands of resumes for a single role.

To realize the full benefits of ethical AI within a company, executives should have an ethical framework to ensure an agreed-upon understanding of how it is designed and insights into how it can be responsibly used. This involves better understanding the technology algorithm and auditing the system before deployment. Companies should ask the vendors about the AI tools they plan to use to assess and remediate any potential biases that may creep in a while implementing the tool. 

No matter the technology, including AI, there must be a balance – without proper steps for implementation and ongoing supervision, it can be detrimental to any organization. However, when leveraged properly alongside the human touch, the potential benefits far surpass the preventable risk. A high tech high-touch approach represents a massive opportunity for companies to attract top talent better, build a more diverse candidate pool and help close the talent gaps that reshape whole industries and the employee experience in the long run.

Should recruiters use AI technology to vet and streamline the candidate experience objectively? Share your thoughts with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!

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Alfons Staerk
Alfons Staerk

Global Senior Director, Recruiting Technology and Experience, BCG

In his role at BCG, Alfons works on transforming the recruiting experience for candidates and recruiters – combining his two work passions of helping people succeed in their careers and leveraging technology to make life more efficient! Alfons brings with him a wealth of tech expertise. He was the Head of Product for Recruiting Technology at Amazon, where he simplified processes, unified system strategies, and streamlined operations to improve candidate experience and implement large-scale automation and machine learning for selection and matching. After finishing his masters at the Technical University of Munich, Alfons started his career as a Senior Consultant for Tandem Computers. He then moved on to Microsoft, where over 17 years, he held various leadership roles in Business Development, Business Strategy, Product Marketing, and Product and Program Management. Before joining BCG, Alfons led product management teams at Amazon for 5 years. Alfons and his wife Uli, moved to the US from Munich in 2006. They have two kids, Claire (13) and Alex (11), two cats, a dog, and a horse. They love the outdoors, and their home in Montana, a mere 90 minutes from Yellowstone National Park is the perfect launch point for their adventures.
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