The future of talent acquisition

TL;DR

Human vs. AI: the big debate

Can talent partners really be replaced by tech?

Why we should celebrate AI, not fear it

Leave the admin to AI while you focus on strategy.

How to build a talent team fit for the future

Break the boom and bust cycle with a lean model.

Human vs. AI: the big debate

Human interaction has always been (and we think always will be) a huge part of recruitment. In a potential candidate’s eyes, your talent partners are your brand, so there’s a lot of pressure for them to represent who you are and what you do in the right way.

Behind the scenes though, there is a lot of admin involved which takes talent partners further away from speaking to candidates and the areas of their job where they can add the most value. When you consider the time taken up with admin tasks in context of the opportunities AI offers, it’s clear the talent industry is ripe for change.

While we see this as a really positive thing, there’s a clear underlying sense of threat from the new technologies coming to market.

In their Workforce of the Future report, WPC found that 37% are worried about automation putting jobs at risk. And it’s no wonder. There’s been a lot of scaremongering in the press about AI, how it’s going to change the way we do things and potentially do certain jobs more effectively than humans.

The priority for talent teams should be understanding what this new technology can do and embracing the operational changes (and efficiencies) that come with it.

Why we should celebrate AI, not fear it

It’s human instinct to fear the unknown — particularly when the unknown involves something capable of doing the things you’re paid to do. But AI has been a useful tool in recruitment for a while now and we believe it’s a strength, not a threat.

When Open AI launched ChatGPT, the corporate world scurried around testing it out. We’ve seen people use it to generate job ads, debug code and even write essays. Whether it can do those things better than a human is up for debate, but it’s certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons.

As with any tech, you can choose how you use it. When the initial excitement and noise dies down, we’ll see the conversation in the talent industry shift to a more practical one about how humans work alongside tech to manage the end-to-end hiring process.

The key will be to harness the potential of tech to support talent partners, rather than embedding the tech and trying to fit people around it.

The real benefits of AI in recruitment

The obvious difference between technology and humans is that technology doesn’t have the capacity to hold preconceived ideas in the way that humans do. Our views on the world are shaped by our own experiences and the people around us, but tech can’t accurately replicate that.

That means AI has the potential to support more inclusive hiring practices and reduce bias in your processes.

“Inclusive teams are over 35% more productive”

A report by Research and Markets found that diverse companies earn 2.5x higher cash flow per employee and inclusive teams are over 35% more productive. If AI can help you build more inclusive teams and achieve these kind of results, the investment will be well worth it.

On a practical level, it can also screen candidates, review CVs, schedule interviews and send calendar invites.

We’ve already said hiring processes are built on human interaction, and we believe that matters more now than ever. When you harness AI capabilities to take on time-consuming tasks, you free up talent partners to spend time on the areas where they can really add value — like developing hiring strategies, headhunting and building talent pools to support with future hiring.

How to build a talent team fit for the future

The one constant we can be sure of over the next few years is change. For talent teams to thrive, they need to have the capacity to support all business areas with hiring, be agile enough to pivot as the market dictates, and operate a lean model to break the pattern of mass layoff, re-hire, repeat that inevitably comes with boom and bust cycles. It’s no small feat!

So, how do you rapidly hire top talent while simultaneously operating a lean talent team?

Talent as a subscription

We are huge advocates of the subscription model. In simple terms, it gives you the talent resource you need as and when you need it, without the pressure of having a large permanent team to manage and support.

When things get tight, you need an operating model that allows a super capable, strategic (permanent) team to stay, regardless of how much demand changes.

That’s only possible if you have flexible support that you can scale up and down as you need.

Cue the embedded talent model…

We firmly believe the optimum way to operate is through an embedded talent model managed by a lean senior internal team. Here’s why:

• AI is already starting to reduce the number of junior tasks and manual work involved in hiring. As you invest in new technology, the shape of your team will naturally evolve to include a smaller number of senior people capable of managing automation tools, analysing insights and continually improving processes.

• With a senior team focused more on strategy, you’ll have a clearer view on demand which means you can make more responsible decisions around the number of people you hire, the roles you hire for and when you hire them.

• The embedded model gives you the well needed wiggle room to scale as you need it, rather than hiring a big permanent team based on short-term demand then being forced to strip it back as things get tight.

When you accept the industry is shifting and choose to embrace the technology that’s helping us get there, you will reap the benefits of a much more effective model.

Human experiences underpinned by AI will result in efficiency for your organisation, more engaged candidates and fulfilled talent partners. That’s a win-win-win in our eyes.