Over the past decade, I’m not sure I’ve seen a buzz word pick up traction as quickly as “artificial intelligence” has in the recruiting space. It’s been dominating the ‘blogosphere’ and main stage at most HR tech-related conferences throughout 2019. Run a search in the Newsfeed on Google for AI in Recruiting and you’ll find almost 200 articles. That same search returned just 37 results for the entire year of 2016. Nearly every client we meet with wants to hear about what companies are doing with AI.
But as buzzworthy as AI has been in recruitment, it’s been quite polarizing. While we continually see people concerned that technology is out to replace humans in the recruitment process, more often our conversation sits on the other end of the spectrum. Companies continually come to us looking to “incorporate AI” without understanding what challenges they’re trying to address. For us, we always take a step back to define the root problem(s) that our client is trying to solve. But many times we find ourselves educating clients on the importance of looking at their process through a clear lens.
So we thought it’d be helpful to share some of our favorite articles and resources for wherever you’re at in the process of digging into ways to improve your recruitment technology stack.
Curious about the impact of human bias when you start automating tasks in your hiring process? The Survival of the Best Fit site has got you covered. Don’t forget to dig into their Resources section, which helps explain how machine learning is applied in recruitment systems, and the importance of understanding what metrics are being used in your decision making.
Want some reassurance that AI isn’t taking your job? The World Economic Forum is a great place to start. They talk about the importance of “learning agility” in their piece about how AI is changing the way we recruit.
Need to take a step further back? Take a look at Ideal.com’s breakdown of what is exactly *is* AI for Recruiting. They also do a fantastic job of explaining augmented intelligence as a way to complement human efficiency.
Lastly, the “black box” of AI. If you want an interesting read about the Dark Secret at the Heart of AI, this article is for you. One of the challenges we’ve continually seen with companies in the recruitment space is often the inability to look “under the hood” of the technology to understand the “why” behind the decisions being made. For example: Why are certain search results coming up first? People want to know the algorithms used to make decisions. The Black Box problem digs deeper.
If you’re struggling to keep up with all the new tools and technologies in the HR tech space, you’re not alone. And with the VC funding frenzy in the HR tech space expected to surpass $5B of investment in 2019, a crowded vendor marketplace is going to get even more noisy. We’re here to help companies navigate through the crowd.
