Use digital technologies to transform recruitment and hiring

Recruiters and human resources leaders have had access to chatbots, machine learning, and artificial intelligence for years. But HR has been slow to put these digital tools to use with recruiting.

The business cost of losing the talent war is high. No company should delay hiring the skilled talent they need to lead in the marketplace and achieve their growth and financial goals.

Phenom recently released its State of Candidate Experience 2023 report, auditing the recruiting practices of Fortune 500 companies. While it shows progress with using multiple devices for career sites, using easy-to-recognize job titles, posting on multiple job sites, and using video content, there are still deficiencies.

Let’s look first at where recruiting is excelling:

Phenom discovered that the Fortune 500 excelled with the following recruiting practices:

• 95 percent of career sites can be viewed on all devices — desktop, tablet, or mobile device — without sacrificing quality or experience.
• 87 percent of job titles comply with best practices, which helps candidates find relevant jobs faster. The report also revealed that 87 percent of job descriptions are well written with at least three job responsibilities and at least three qualifications to better inform job seekers about the opportunity so they can determine if it’s the right fit.
• 75 percent of the Fortune 500 cast a broad net to attract candidates, using six or more job posting sites, a seven percent increase from 2021.
• 61 percent engaged candidates using video content.
• 81 percent helped convert candidates with easy site navigation, including clear error messages, highlighting the necessary action.

The Fortune 500 faced challenges in the following three areas:

• Only 15 percent of career sites had a social login option — and only three percent had curated social media content embedded within their career sites. The use of social media is a great way to engage candidates and streamline the job search and application process. Still, the majority are not capitalizing on this easy use of technology.
• Only 16 percent of career sites offered job recommendations based on a candidate’s created profile, and only 14 percent offered them job recommendations based on candidate browsing history. If it’s difficult for candidates to find a job that matches their skills and interests, they’re quick to leave. This is an ideal area to use Artificial Intelligence.
• Only 15 percent of career sites had a chatbot. Chatbots are a great way to leverage AI to personalize candidate experiences, proactively answer questions, guide candidates toward jobs, and reduce tedious tasks typically handled by recruiters or hiring managers.

Phenom has five simple recommendations to improve recruiting. These recommendations do not require a lot of time or cost to implement. They are the following:

1. Post vacancies on at least four job posting sites and two social media platforms (LinkedIn and Twitter)
2. Ensure your career site is accessible from multiple devices (desktop, mobile, tablet) without sacrificing functionality.
3. Make your career site “discoverable” by using SEO-friendly URLs and including compelling content to improve domain and page authority.
4. Optimize career site content “above the fold” (don’t force candidates to scroll to search for jobs or join your talent community).
5. Remove expired job postings from third-party sites to ensure candidates aren’t wasting time applying to a job that is no longer open.

Phenom has more complex recommendations that do require more significant time and cost to implement. However, these recommendations yield the strongest results for a positive candidate experience. They are the recommendations I like most:

• Leverage AI to remember career site visitors and provide job suggestions based on location, browsing history, user profile, skills and experience, and other candidate-specific information.
• Use a conversational AI chatbot to greet career site visitors, capture leads, proactively address common questions, and automate screening and scheduling.
• To fast-track hiring, hire AI technology that can source and pre-qualify previous applicants, active leads, and internal employees.
• Use advanced analytics that allow hiring teams to measure progress, report on visitor interactions, predict outcomes, and make necessary improvements along the way.
• Embrace cutting-edge technology that will improve efficiencies and experience, such as generative AI, interview intelligence, and candidate hub.

As I pointed out four years ago in my book Hack Recruiting and as Phenom asserts now, today’s job seekers demand streamlined, personalized experiences, and excellent functioning technology. If companies can’t deliver this experience, they risk losing essential talent to the competition. Though many companies have improved over the last four years, there is still considerable room for further enhancements.

With digital technology, HR leaders can transform HR and make it more strategic and analytical and an essential partner driving profitable growth in companies. HR leaders can build better employer brand for their companies, as marketing leaders have built better customer brand.

It is time for HR and CEOS to take this seriously and get started.

Victor Assad is the CEO of Victor Assad Strategic Human Resources Consulting and managing partner of InnovationOne, LLC. He works with organizations to transform HR and recruiting, implement remote work, and develop extraordinary leaders, teams, and innovation cultures. He is the author of the highly acclaimed book, Hack Recruiting: The Best of Empirical Research, Method and Process, and Digitization. He is quoted in business journals such as The Wall Street Journal, Workforce Management, and CEO Magazine. Subscribe to his weekly blogs at http://www.VictorHRConsultant.com.