How Recruitment Chatbots are Transforming the Hiring Landscape?

Have you heard of a recruitment chatbot? Ever wondered what it is? No idea what it is?

Fret not! We’ll tell you.

We hope you’ve heard of Jarvis, the virtual assistant to Ironman. Now, imagine Jarvis taking the first round of interview by conversing with candidates and screening them according to the specs mentioned by Ironman.

Sounds cool, doesn’t it?

Think of recruitment chatbot as the basic version of Jarvis; a simple yet efficient tool that works on AI to let you interview only the legitimate candidates thereby saving your time, efforts, and cost.

This is an over-simplified explanation of the term recruitment chatbot. However, there’s more to it.

Today, we’ll be covering every aspect related to recruitment chatbots including the benefits of implementing it in your organization's hiring process. But first, let’s understand…

What are Recruitment Chatbots?

Recruitment chatbots are conversational AI that help organizations with initial screening and filtering the candidates based on the minimum qualifications mentioned for a certain post. Additionally, they help candidates with their queries regarding job profile, company’s information, or any other doubts.

As per a report shared by HubSpot,

• Candidates feel quite comfortable interacting with AI chatbots at various stages of recruitment. Be it scheduling the interview, sharing resume, asking questions pertaining to the interview process, receiving screening feedback, etc.

• More than 65% of companies have admitted that their companies will be fully functional on AI and robotics in the next five years.

Considering these facts, you can say that the recruitment industry is shifting to automation at a faster pace. And if you are still pondering about it, you will be left far behind in the race.

Before you proceed with deploying recruitment chatbots on your company’s app, website, or official WhatsApp account, you need to figure out which one is a better option for you. There are two types of recruitment chatbots:

1. AI-based
2. Rule-based

AI-based chatbots are self-learning and evolving. Meaning, you don’t need to program specific answers to them. On the other hand, the rule-based chatbots are programmed to address limited queries. In case, the question posted by the candidate is not in their data, it would simply connect him with a human executive.

If you take our advice, we would suggest going for the former one.

How are Recruitment Chatbots Transforming the Hiring Business?

If you are still figuring out whether investing in conversational AI is necessary or not, here are some benefits that will compel you to get one now.

Improves candidate experience

As we mentioned earlier, it would be quite cool to give an interview to Jarvis. Although Jarvis is a way too futuristic thing, recruitment chatbots work fine as per current scenario.

Candidates can simply chat with them on websites or on the mobile app, give skill assessment tests, learn about certification or courses to make their resume look stronger, check how they are better than other applicants, etc.

Here are some interesting statistics provided by HubSpot,

• Around, 66% of candidates like interacting with recruitment chatbots. Further, they like the fact that it helps them schedule their interview and prepare for the same.

• Interestingly, 61% of candidates are comfortable with AI apps conducting their skill assessment. Thus, it reduces any kind of biased hiring.

These figures are sheer proof that deploying conversational AI on your website or app can improve your candidates’ experience. If you are wondering how, we have explained it ahead.

Automates initial screening process

You might be aware that candidates share their resume on recruitment platforms or mail it to the HR and wait for days to get their results. This is just the first step of the initial screening process.

If we talk about the assessment results, it is a different story altogether. That is because, by the time candidates get it, the earth is on the brink of ice age.

We know this sounds hyperbolic, but honestly this is the harsh reality. Often when candidates are informed that they have cleared the test, they are already placed in some other company.

Not to mention, such organizations receive poor feedback on professional platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, etc. This leads to a drop in applicants and those firms miss on hiring talented professionals.

But with the help of recruitment chatbots, the initial screening is automated and the candidates receive results within hours. Hence, the recruiters don’t need to intervene on the primary stages which avoids further delays.

Facilitates quick hiring

As we said earlier, recruitment chatbots analyze the resume for experience and skillset to shortlist the candidates. Once the shortlisted candidates give a skill assessment, the chatbot evaluates them and shares the result.

This gears up the initial screening. And post this process, the candidates are left with a personal interview only. So, you see, the entire task of hiring which generally takes weeks is shortened to a couple of days.

Additionally, the recruitment chatbots can arrange interviews with the concerned authorities directly. How is that possible?

Simple, it synchronizes with their calendar and books a slot automatically. All this automation and reduced human intervention facilitates quick hiring.

Eliminate biased recruitment

Since the entire hiring process is automated from the initial stage, it avoids any kind of biased recruitment. Let us explain it in detail.

Suppose, someone from the recruitment panel has got a referral candidate. Now it might happen that he/she is under qualified for the job. But considering their reach in the recruitment panel, they get hired without any second question.

This kind of thing happens majorly in government jobs or certain posts in MNC’s where the application is accepted only on a referral basis. Not to mention, it refrains the other talented candidates with the right caliber from approaching such opportunities.

Proves cost-effective

Last but not the least, implementing recruitment chatbots is a cost-effective step. Reason being, it’s a onetime process and doesn’t require any kind of yearly increment or monthly payments to achieve the targets.

Also, it eliminates the other hidden expenses such as phone bills for calling and following up with candidates, paying consultant services for the initial round of screening, etc. Moreover, deploying a chatbot on your website or app is not too expensive.

What are the Challenges in Deploying Recruitment Chatbots?

Every technology has its own set of challenges, especially when it is a new concept. And recruitment chatbots are no different.

One of the prime challenges about using chatbots for hiring is less awareness. That’s because people still believe that recruitment drives need human intervention as it gives a personalized feel.

But then again it just slows down the entire process. In addition to that, the reliability of technology is still one of the bigger questions of debate among experts and theorists.

Another challenge is dealing with the misconception that recruitment chatbots will eradicate the need of talent acquisition teams and the HR department in the near future. But we assure you that it’s just pure myth.

Though AI chatbots are efficient, there are various other tasks which require intervention of HR and talent acquisition teams. This includes salary negotiation, induction and orientation, sending personalized offer letters, and so on.

Last and most important challenge is data security. You see, the chatbots store data in cloud or internal storage. Hence, there are high chances of data breach, if proper security measures are not deployed. Therefore, investors find it skeptical to invest into such technology and prefer relying on people to take care of the hiring process from end-to-end.

How can Hire Quotient (HQ) help you out?

HQ is every HR’s best friend. We help the talent acquisition team in interviewing best candidates by providing skill assessments.

Our skill assessments are crafted by the experts of the industry and comply with the requirements of every available profession and designations. Over the time we have helped various brands find, select, and work with some of the best talented professionals around the globe with our talent sourcing services as well.

Conclusion

Automation has become a vital part in every industry, and talent acquisition is one of them. The introduction of recruitment chatbots in the hiring process is an initial step towards automation. Going further, you can see AI and robotics taking care of various other stages of recruitment.

We hope that by now, you must have made your mind about deploying this cutting-edge technology in your organization’s hiring processes. Give it a try and let us know in the comments how it worked for you.

Till then, happy hiring.