Automation was a major theme of 2017, the year the benefits and potential downsides of automation entered public consciousness. We worried about what will happen to the economy and the job market when automation becomes ubiquitous, we saw startling new applications of advanced machine learning, and we watched the evolution of headline automation technologies like driverless cars. In 2018, that trend will continue as automation tech is applied to practical problems in many areas, including recruitment.
Widespread automation is made possible by recent technological innovations. The rapid growth of the Internet of Things provides us with huge amounts of data about the world in real time. Data analytics and cloud computing give us the tools to process data at scale. Machine learning empowers us to spot patterns that would once have required a human brain, or that would never have been noticed by even the smartest human.
As you might expect, automation has made significant inroads into the recruitment industry. Recruitment is all about matching the right people with the right jobs. Recruitment is essentially an information gathering, processing, and pattern recognition problem, areas in which machines excel.
A paradigmatic example is the automated scanning of resumes. In industries that receive dozens or even hundreds of resumes for every position, identifying suitable candidates is a time-consuming and expensive process. Most candidates will be eliminated early because they aren’t qualified. Automated systems can analyze resumes and discard those that are unsuitable, reducing cost and freeing recruiters to focus on viable candidates.
Automation can also be applied when the problem is a lack of qualified candidates. Automated systems will use machine learning to identify likely candidates from their employment history, social media posts, GitHub repos, and more, in much the same way marketers use that data to target product advertising.
Similar techniques can be applied throughout the recruitment process, but that doesn’t mean skilled recruiters are likely to find themselves automated out of a job any time soon, particularly in the complex field of executive recruitment.
Automation is great for filtering, but the best recruiters have deep domain specific knowledge of their clients’ industry, insight into the culture of individual organizations, and an understanding the psychology and personalities of existing teams. That knowledge and the insight it provides won’t be automated in the near future. The candidate who superficially appears to be the most qualified isn’t the best candidate if they aren’t the right fit for the company.
The relationships between client, recruiter, and candidate will continue to be of paramount importance. For the foreseeable future, automation will be a useful part of the executive recruitment toolbox, but it won’t replace a knowledgeable and experienced recruitment professional. An understanding of the complexities of human relationships, psychology, and the multi-dimensional needs of businesses will remain at the core of high-level recruitment.
Source: https://medium.com/@alfortnertd/is-automation-the-future-of-executive-recruitment-bb89dfc499c1
