My 250-word blog on Artificial Intelligence and its impact on recruitment and recruiters generated a lot of banter.

So I decided to look more closely at how the job of the recruiter will change. Will they exist at all?

Let me say right now I am very confident about our industry. I am investing in recruitment companies and recruitment tech.

Our industry is on the cusp of great change, but it will not die anytime soon.

And recruiter jobs won’t disappear altogether… BUT…

The job of recruiter is under threat, and it will most definitely change, because of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.

This is not science fiction. This is here. Now.

Automation will change your job. If you don’t adapt accordingly, you will not survive as a recruiter.

The recruiter role is not over, nor will it soon be.

But you have to consider where you actually remain of value.

What do you need to be good at to beat the machine?

It’s critical to understand, that you won’t beat a computer at what the machine does well.

Let the technology take from recruiters what technology does better than humans.

Because right now there is a great deal that machines can do, and will do better soon.

This is critical to understand, because it shows us where we must excel.

Lets have a look.

Sourcing.

Talent identification will become easier and easier. Finding people I mean.

Everyone is online, and most people are more online than ever before.

Privacy is disappearing as a concept.

And the search tools now are getting more and more powerful.

Soon an algorithm will do the job that sourcers thought was such an arcane art.

Finding candidates.

AI will easily be programmed to find skill-sets across digital databases. And it will do it better than people can.

Sourcing is dead. (The finding people part. Not the approaching them part!). Or soon will be.

Screening.

Smart technology can easily and quickly assess candidate CV suitability against the Job Description, and will also parse resumes into a database automatically.

There will no longer be a need for human screening at the first contact.

This might be a good thing because most recruiters do not read resumes in full.

They make gut decisions about resumes, don’t review social profiles, and certainly do not talk to every candidate.

Robots may well do the screening job better. Faster for sure. But better as well.

This change will happen very soon.

Automation of logistics.

Like arranging interviews and organising reference-checking calls.

Already fully functioning chatbots do this now, saving the recruiter huge chunks of what is basically clerical time.

Matching.

When I was in the UK recently, giving a presentation to Idibu, Felix Wetzel brought to my attention the case study of ARM and PocketRecruiter

A shortlist that took a consultant two days to create, PocketRecruiter produced in 20 minutes – with the same quality.

PocketRecruiter found a consultant so many relevant candidates for the roles he was working, he managed to arrange 12 interviews per week (his average was previously 3)

The subsequent benefits explained in this blog post, go to the heart of how AI can free up the recruiter to add value where it counts.

Chatbots.

These will soon be pervasive. And increasingly sophisticated. You see them online everywhere already.

Chatbots can ask predetermined questions to screen a candidate out, or answer questions the candidate puts to the bot, or update a candidate about where they are in the hiring process.

Some Chatbots can also generate and place ads on job boards, and push appropriate job listings to candidates. Automatically.

Recent research suggests that Chatbots are improving the candidate experience and generating a higher percentage of candidates who follow through on the application.

So think about the amount of recruiter’s time saved here if it’s all done by automation?

So all that leaves the elephant in room. The very big question that must be addressed.

AI is going to handle, Sourcing, screening, matching, logistics, and even early assessment.

If automation is going to do such big parts of the recruiter’s jobs, what is left for recruiters to do?

Will you have a job?

Consider this. This is what I believe.

Any task that takes no time to think about will be automated.

Where potential answers can be predicted and predefined, an algorithm can be written, and through machine learning a computer will predict outcomes with scary accuracy.

But where it takes thought and planning and opinion, it is much harder for AI to replicate.

Where there are shades of grey, nuance and influencing possible, AI is currently useless.

So a brilliant example of what I am saying is what most recruiters call ‘sourcing’.

Finding someone can be done by an algorithm. If you key in ‘Melbourne, UX designer’, a machine will scour LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and a thousand other digital storage houses and find the people.

Well actually, no, it won’t find people, it will find their profiles!

And that’s the point. The profiles can be found by machines. The people are harder to reach.

Because approaching that person takes skill and finesse. It’s a tailored, sophisticated, bespoke outreach. That takes thought, planning, and market knowledge. It’s a seduction. It’s a sell.

When is AI going to do that?

This is how we must face the future that will be hard upon us soon.

AI, and technology generally, frees you up to do much better that which only you can do

This is absolutely critical to grasp and act on.

You need to be very, very good at that part of recruitment that machines cannot do, because that is the sweet spot.

Ironically, this means that the real value of a recruiter will now be in his or her selling skills

That is the bit of your job that will be left once the machines march in.

The part of recruitment that is left for recruiters to do is the human part.

Now when I use the word ‘selling’ I need you to understand sales in a different way.

I don’t mean cold calling, handing out business cards at an event, or spamming candidates around town.

I use ‘selling’ to mean influencing, persuading, advising, consulting, networking and building reputation and brand.

Yes, we use the word selling in a much more modern, holistic and consultative way

This will mean two very important truths;

• The recruiter can act as a real strategy advisor to clients. Credible enough act as a talent consultant. A sharer of knowledge, and an influencer of tactics and creator of outcomes. This will be true of both Agency and in-house recruiters

• Also the Agency recruiter will shift to acting as an Agent for the best talent, which is a much bigger statement than it first sounds, because it involves trust and exclusivity.

So be smart about AI and technology.

Give away your grunt work; don’t hold on to it in desperation to hold on to your job. That will ironically speed up your demise.

Your value is in your knowledge, your advice, your influencing, your consulting, your networks, your brand, your influencing, and your problem-solving skills.

Embrace the technology; automate as much as you can. So you can add value where it counts.

That will be your competitive advantage.

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The Savage Recruitment Academy!

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