Takeaways on the future of AI in Talent Acquisition

Do you fear that the landscape of HR will be radically changed by the rapid adoption of AI? Do you worry about what that might mean for your own role and for your organization? Do you know which areas of your company are most likely to be automated, and do you have a plan in place to address the coming changes?

These are the questions we explored during our Tiki Talks event this past week where we gathered founders, people leaders, and investors from some of Manhattan’s fastest-growing companies. For the lightning talks, we were joined by our CEO; Andres Blank, the CEO of Sapling; Bart Macdonald, and Senior Technical Recruiter at Peloton; Will Blaze. Our speakers shared their insights and tactical tips on how people leaders can be prepared for the sudden onset of AI and automation.

Here are our key takeaways from the event:

1. This is an exciting time to be a recruiter
2. Monotonous tasks will be replaced by algorithms
3. AI can help create a healthier and happier workplace by identifying teams and individuals who are at risk, over-stressed, or unengaged

1) This is an exciting time to be a recruiter
A study by Korn Ferry reveals that out of 800 recruiters, over 69% said AI helped them source better. How? AI has access to big data, which enables pattern recognition to quickly identify qualified candidates from a large pool of applicants. These algorithms help a recruiter source candidates that are similar to their past successful employees. AI can also revolutionize diversity hiring. If a recruiter is trying to build a diverse pipeline, they would normally have to look through thousands of profiles to find what they are looking for. For most companies this can be time and cost prohibitive. With AI, a recruiter can immediately source a bench of diverse, qualified candidates faster and more efficiently than ever before.

2) Monotonous tasks will be automated
Originally, a part of HR was fostering human relationships, yet over time that work has been minimized because HR teams are often drowning in paperwork. With AI, the profession will be less administrative, freeing up time to focus on the work that really matters. Today bots can complete standard work forms, manage certain repetitive employee communications, and accomplish other monotonous tasks that tend to disproportionately impact HR teams.

For recruiters, this means that they will be able to have more time to build deeper connections with their hiring managers and the prospective candidates. This could allow them to develop a deeper understanding of what the hiring manager is looking for and who can best fit the company’s needs and culture.

3. AI can help create a healthier and happier workplace by identifying teams and individuals who are at risk, over-stressed, or unengaged
AI can improve retention and employee engagement by finding people or teams who are under excessive stress in the workplace by monitoring their sentiment in written communications. This could give HR teams important information about the mental health of their co-workers, and the knowledge of who needs extra support. Finally, one of the important elements of a healthy workplace and effective team is diversity in gender, race, and age. AI can help remove many types of unconscious biases present in the hiring process. As we’ve come to know, a bias recognized can be a bias sterilized. This gives us hope that AI can be a powerful tool in combating bias in hiring, leading to more diverse and inclusive workplaces.

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A warm thank you to our co-host, Sapling, and to all the incredible founders, investors, and people leaders who attended this event. It is discussions such as these that allow us to share our best practices in order to build a bright future with AI.