Time is the enemy of the personal attention it takes to create deeper, more meaningful human connections. But that's what’s required to nurture and hire the right people in today's competitive job market.
The impersonal approach just doesn't work, especially with Millennials and Gen Z. Heck, even Gen Xers and Baby Boomers in the past year have cried out for something better in a job. Applicants who are receiving multiple offers want to be courted. They want to feel valued. Offering bigger salaries and better benefits are great, but most people want to feel wanted, welcomed, and treated as individuals.
That takes time that HR, recruiters, and hiring managers don’t have. They have hundreds of other manual little things that are soaking up their time. And if they can't automate those tasks, then they'll continue to lose prized applicants to recruiters who have figured out how to free up most of their time to connect personally with applicants.
How do you leverage technology to free you up for the important stuff?
Artificial intelligence (AI) has made headlines in recent months within the HR and talent acquisition community. LinkedIn’s Future of Recruiting 2023 report highlighted several predictions, including the role of AI in recruiting. Their research shows that among hiring professionals, 74% anticipate generative AI enabling them to automate repetitive tasks to prioritize more strategic work, 67% believe it will help them source candidates faster and easier, and 59% believe it will have a positive impact on their ability to engage with candidates.
It’s clear that many HR and talent acquisition professionals are taking the time to consider the various uses for AI in their daily jobs. Many professionals have shared optimism and excitement about the prospect of AI supporting certain aspects of talent acquisition, with a healthy dose of caution. Generative AI can be a powerful resource, but it should be viewed as such – a resource to support talent acquisition, not a replacement for human empathy, consideration, and skill.
The benefits of automation and AI are certainly echoed among the Symphony Talent community with one client commenting, “If we didn’t have this automation, we would be screwed. We have leveraged the technology from Symphony Talent to automate the low value administrative work that was on their plate so they can focus their time on the high-touch and human elements that are much more valuable.”
And another client recently shared, “Prior to having Symphony Talent’s CRM, if I had a list of 30 people that I was trying to contact, I would have to reach out individually by phone and potentially leave messages and play phone tag. Now I can use the bulk SMS messaging in the CRM to send a personalized text message to all 30 people in 30 seconds.”
The power of AI in recruitment marketing
Automation is rooted in AI. Simply put, AI mimics human thinking. It learns, solves problems, predicts and reasons with a high degree of autonomy.
Empowering employers and employees to connect expertise with the right opportunities makes for a mutually beneficial situation. In the hiring process, HR and recruiters use it to match people with roles based on skills, abilities, job aspirations, and values. It also enables internal talent mobility, linking current employees with internal opportunities that align with their overarching career goals.
And it does so quickly, efficiently, and accurately, freeing up HR professionals to spend time on what really matters in this tight job market — building relationships.
More benefits of automation and AI in talent acquisition
An automated HR strategy that leverages AI also can help HR leaders and practitioners retain talent within their organization.
Smart automation infused with AI analytics can help employers find existing employees with skill sets they might have overlooked, reducing their need to source talent externally. Analytics deliver the insights that hone in on skill gaps or opportunities for upward talent mobility, something most employees want. And it does so without all the manual labor involved in searching and courting outside applicants.
Additionally, AI optimizes the workforce. The Great Resignation morphed into the Great Reimagination, causing organizations to rethink the meaning of jobs and employees and their ways of working. With the help of AI, HR can empower them with timely strategies and tools.
AI also can help talent teams more accurately predict when and where employees’ skill-sets will become antiquated or obsolete. That way, talent managers can get ahead of skills gaps, providing training and adjusting hiring as they account for what’s to come.
All of this reduces time searching for external applicants, resulting in more time for personal attention.
AI in recruitment marketing
HR and recruiters use marketing techniques to find and attract candidates to their jobs and even brand. AI and automation are the resource extensions of the talent team, helping them be more efficient at these tasks.
Symphony Talent’s suite of talent acquisition solutions leverage built-in AI and automated workflows, enabling our clients to take back control of their processes across the entire talent lifecycle, from awareness to retention, while building strong candidate and employee relationships. We all know the power of data to drive smarter, faster decisions, and that’s exactly what Symphony Talent aims to do with our client partnerships.
The bottom line is, technology continues to transform the workplace. Without AI in recruitment marketing, we’d be in a very different place, one that we’d argue is out-of-date and out-of-tune with today’s job seekers.
