It’s Time To Transform The Hiring Process—AI Can Help

There is no doubt that AI will greatly impact the workplace. If embraced properly, AI can help organizations increase their productivity while also boosting employees’ job satisfaction and retention.

From Google to Microsoft to Meta, tech companies are scrambling to restructure their workforce in the dawn of AI. This is spurring lots of conversations in the news about how AI will steal our jobs and replace humans.

It’s bringing me back to the dawn of the Internet around 1997, when many people feared how the world wide web was going to change everything. In reality, it took a few years for any substantial changes in the workforce to happen. While the Internet did replace some jobs, it also created new ones. Just like content creators or social media managers didn’t exist before the Internet, there will also be new AI jobs that don’t yet exist, such as content auditors to check bias in the data that’s fed into AI models. 

While we’re waiting for new job titles to catch up, companies can leverage AI to improve the hiring process itself. As the CEO of HireTalent, a diversity staffing firm, being in a people-centered business means humans will always be at the heart of the way we work. However, we can tap into AI’s unprecedented ability to process vast amounts of data to help us better serve the humans we work for and with, such as to uncover untapped talent or to personalize the onboarding process.  Here are three ways companies can use AI to make the hiring process better.

AI Can Help Match Candidates With The Best Jobs For Them

One of AI’s strengths is its super-human pattern matching abilities. We can use this technological advancement to place people in the positions they are best suited for and that will be most beneficial to the company. 

For example, we can tap into AI to better match candidate profiles with the positions that most closely align with their experiences and skills. We can also use AI’s pattern matching powers to go deeper to uncover soft skills, interests, and other elements that will help ensure the candidate will be happy in the role and be a great fit for the position within the company. 

This is a win-win for both the employer and the employee: Employees in well-matched positions will likely have higher job satisfaction and retention rates, leading to greater productivity and innovation. Moreover, less turnover is good for the bottom line, as it costs companies one-half to two times a position’s annual salary to find a replacement.

AI Can Help Bust Bias in Hiring

While AI can contribute to bias in hiring if it is pulling from “biased” data, it can also be a bias interrupter by removing factors that could be linked to discrimination, such as gender or race. In this way, AI can help overcome hiring managers' initial unconscious bias by presenting them with resumes they might not otherwise have considered but that have skills and experience fitting for the role.

On the flipside, candidates making it to the interview process will eventually meet with a hiring manager, and if you have a brain, you have bias humans. That’s why even with AI removing factors linked to stereotypes on a resume, unconscious bias training for hiring managers will remain vital for helping to hire the best candidate for the job. 

At Consciously Unbiased, we offer virtual and in-person Unconscious Bias in Hiring certifications for hiring managers and talent acquisition teams to help identify and mitigate unconscious bias that can show up throughout the hiring process. 

One way to help interrupt bias in the hiring process is to standardize interview questions so every candidate is asked the same things. The questions should be skill and value based to help you determine the best person for the role. Try outlining the three values a person would need to be successful in the specific role you’re hiring for. For example, the values you may be looking for in an executive assistant might be adaptable, innovative, and self motivated. If you’re looking for someone whose values include ‘self-motivation,’ then you might ask your applicants to ‘describe a time where you proposed a solution to a company challenge that was outside your job description or created a new process without being asked.’

AI Can Make Onboarding More Personalized and Inclusive

Just as every employee is unique, the onboarding process shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all. New AI models could help pinpoint an employee’s overall learning style before they start, and then adapt the onboarding process to help the new hire adjust more quickly to the company culture. 

AI can be used to help automate certain aspects of the onboarding process, such as by using algorithms built for pattern matching to help match a new hire with a mentor who is a good fit. AI can also automate calendar appointments for regular check-ins with managers and co-workers during the crucial first six months of starting a new job. AI can be leveraged to send out emails to make sure new hires are aware of the various benefits packages, job development opportunities, and other company perks. Finally, AI can help match new employees with the right training so new hires can be more productive faster.

There is no doubt that AI will greatly impact the workplace. If embraced properly, AI can help organizations increase their productivity while also boosting employees’ job satisfaction and retention. People will continue to be a company’s greatest resource, and learning to tap into the power of AI can transform the hiring process into one that is better for humans.