How to use tech to improve your recruitment process

With technology always evolving, it’s obviously important for businesses to evolve with it. In particular, some industries simply can’t afford to ignore it.

Having been in the recruitment world for a number of years, I think this is definitely the case for us. We all know that humans will never be replaced in recruitment – it’s a people business after all and they’re the most valuable asset we have!

But if a recruitment company invests in the right tools - those exact same people will become better, quicker and therefore bill more. It’s a win-win situation.

Onezeero recruits within the tech industry itself, so have useful access to the latest information and tools. Here’s a few of the key areas where I think recruitment is being impacted.

A Need for Speed – One resource nobody can get back is lost time. Every business wants their employees to spend as much of it as possible on the core tasks which really make a difference. It’s also no secret that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can sort through data far quicker than humans. For recruiters, this means the initial stage of screening CVs and sourcing candidates can be done through AI. We’ve invested in a tool which does exactly this – it’s built into our browsers so there’s no time lost.

There are also tools now which reach out to candidates to set up an initial call, and do so in a personalised way so it doesn’t look like a machine message. Again, this is a game changer which means recruiters can focus on the more complex parts of hiring, as well as finding new opportunities.

Chat bots – most of us have been onto a website and engaged with customer service bots. As soon as you visit the site, up pops Helpful Harry to ask you a few questions – and within a couple of minutes, you’ve changed the delivery address for your Valentine’s gift just in the nick of time.

Recruiter chat bots can be used in the same way to ask candidates real time questions, and essentially screen them. They can then make sure the right person gets in touch. This is important if you have specialists in different areas – you want candidates to go to the relevant person as quickly as possible.

Efficient Insight – The best tech tools don’t rely on gut instinct. Netflix is a great example – when they recommend a film, it’s based on what you’ve watched and how you’ve interacted with their platform, not just a random feeling they have! Murder Mountain was my latest recommendation – very good!

Using tech properly can improve the quality of hire and also stop unconscious bias preventing the right person from progressing. In the early stages, it’s definitely good to use an AI tool that focuses on things like experience and cultural fit. This last point might sound surprising – how can a machine work out cultural fit? 

Well here at Onezeero we use a tool which quickly analyses a candidate’s CV, background, public profile and lots more. That way you can see what sort of fit there is with the hiring company. You can go to the effort of researching all of this yourself if you want – but as mentioned earlier, speed is crucial.

VAR: Video Assisted Recruiting - Video interviewing has long been seen as the way forward, due to the time it saves everyone. At Onezeero, we’ve also noticed an improvement to the quality of our recruitment process. This is because we’re not restricting clients to a rigid job brief. We often ask them to film the job description so we can really get under the skin of what they’re after, and candidates know more about the company they could work for.

This makes it so much easier for our recruiters to make hires. It’s great for the clients as well because the job description is more engaging than 10 boring paragraphs of text. They can do a guided tour of the office, show off their ping-pong table and even introduce Lucy the Labrador. That’s what you call candidate attraction!

Tech Based Training – We all know the importance of training, but I believe it’s even more important to make it bespoke. After all, what works for one person isn’t guaranteed to work for everyone.

By investing in online L&D platforms, companies can tailor their programmes to each person. We’re fortunate to be part of the global Impellam Group, which means we’ve been able to develop our very own programme rather than getting something off the shelf. The days of sending everyone the same PowerPoint are long gone - one size fits all is great when buying scarves but not when building skills!

If you’re an ambitious recruiter looking to take the next step in your career, please check out our Hunted page or contact me on [email protected]