Nov 14 2023
If there’s one thing recruiters of hourly workers have very little of, it’s time: time to refine their hiring process, time to explore new options, and time to realize they need to make a change at all. But by not taking the time to learn about faster, smarter, and more efficient hiring solutions, like AI recruiting software, recruiters are actually losing time, and even losing out on the best candidates.
If adding AI to your hiring process seems like a heavy lift, it doesn’t have to be! We’ve put together this ultimate guide to AI recruiting software to arm you with the knowledge to make the best decision for your unique recruitment needs.
In this post, we’ll explore AI’s features, functions, and benefits for recruiters who need to hire high volumes of workers at a steady pace, and offer tips for what you should consider when seeking your own AI recruiting software solution.
What is AI recruiting software?
Recruiting software has been used for decades to consolidate tasks and get candidates through the process faster. These solutions are commonly referred to as an applicant tracking system, or ATS. Today’s ATSes are designed to incorporate different tools and integrations to amplify their abilities and keep recruiters on the cutting edge of hiring technology.
With the addition of AI, particularly conversational AI, hiring teams now have the ability to automate more than they ever thought possible, enabling them to get ahead in the recruitment race and win more talent.
Implementing AI into your existing hiring process doesn’t have to be a major lift, require downtime, or necessitate a massive learning curve for your recruiters. Keep reading to learn how AI can work for you and ramp up your hiring power with little effort.
The impact of conversational AI on recruitment and hiring
Manual recruitment processes can be time-consuming and labor-intensive for recruiters. This is where conversational AI can step in to streamline recruitment and hiring processes for hourly positions.
AI recruiting software can streamline workflows, reduce costs, and lead to faster and more accurate decision-making, making it a valuable tool for enterprise businesses looking to hire at scale and stay competitive in today’s tight hiring market.
See below for the full range of benefits.
Faster hiring
With a standard recruitment process, you’re likely losing top candidates’ attention due to slow response times and poor engagement. By implementing AI, you can provide immediate responses to applicants with around-the-clock messaging capabilities. Combined with automation elsewhere in the pipeline, you’re looking at a much smoother, much faster hiring flow.
Cost savings
Adopting AI recruiting software will require an initial investment, but it won’t take long for these tools to start increasing recruiter efficiency, reducing time spent on manual tasks, and enabling self-service and automation, which will benefit your recruitment budget in the long term.
Better candidate experience
By providing candidates with immediate responses via automated messages and enabling recruiters to focus on high-value manual tasks, AI recruiting software can help hiring teams create a more consistent HR experience for candidates and ensure companies are able to incorporate their brand and culture.
Improved visibility and insights
AI recruiting software can collect data and analyze recruitment metrics, allowing hiring teams to identify areas for improvement and optimize their recruitment strategies over time.
Use cases for AI recruiting software
How does AI recruiting software achieve the above benefits? Through the features listed below! Let’s explore.
Multi-board job posting
With AI recruiting software, recruiters can automatically post job openings to multiple job boards at the same time. This helps maximize the visibility of open roles and increases the likelihood of attracting the right candidates.
Candidate sourcing
AI recruiting software can search a variety of job boards, social media platforms, and professional networks to identify best-fit applicants. Once they apply, AI also can be used to screen resumes, ask candidates pre-screening questions, and provide real-time feedback.
Easy interview scheduling
Historically, scheduling interviews has been a high-friction task for many recruiters. Applicants may be asked to create a username and password they’ll have to remember for subsequent sign-ins.
With AI recruiting software, that same system can be simplified by:
- Automatically sending an SMS or WhatsApp message to the candidate to congratulate them and invite them to an interview.
- Using conversational AI to present them with options for days and times to schedule the interview, pulling data from the recruiter’s calendar.
- Enabling the candidate to reply in the chat window with the best days and times that work for them.
Fast assessments
Recruiters can use AI-powered assessments to objectively evaluate candidates’ aptitude for a particular position. These assessments can be used to evaluate a wide range of competencies, from technical skills to soft skills such as communication and teamwork.
Background checks
AI recruiting software can verify candidates’ identities as well as their employment history and any professional certifications they may need to perform their job duties.
Efficient onboarding
AI’s applications don’t end once the candidate has been hired. Ensure your new hires have everything they need to succeed by automating the digital delivery of employee handbooks, using AI to answer common first-day questions, and even conducting virtual onboarding sessions.
Essential features of AI recruiting software
Now that you know how AI can refresh and improve your hiring system, we’re sharing this list of features that are essential to help you make the most of AI recruiting software.
Conversational AI
Conversational AI, commonly referred to as a “chatbot”, can be embedded via browser, text, and instant messaging software to handle applicant queries and collect information even when recruiters aren’t available.
Streamlined workflows
Most AI recruiting solutions are built to hire high volumes of hourly workers and are backed by automated workflows that are specific to role and location.
Automated manual tasks
By automating certain aspects of recruitment, like uploading documents and responding to candidate questions, recruiters can save time, increase efficiency, and make more informed decisions about who to ultimately hire.
Intelligent integrations
AI recruiting software can integrate seamlessly with the hiring tools you already use, allowing recruiters to access and analyze candidate data and provide a better experience for both candidates and recruiters.
Analytics dashboard and reports
Hiring data can be used to identify top candidates, provide insights into hiring trends, and even help improve the recruitment process overall.
Recruiting with AI technology: Ethics and best practices
Using AI to recruit workers comes with a host of ethical concerns, but we’re here to explain how to navigate these concerns and ensure your hiring processes are fair and efficient.
One concern about the use of AI recruiting software is the potential for bias. To address this, recruiting teams need to regularly assess their AI practices for potentially biased language, filters, or other discriminatory patterns.
Another concern about AI recruiting software is its potential to replace human recruiters. But when used correctly, AI can act as an augmenter and amplifier of human behavior rather than trying to replace humans in decision-making.
To overcome these ethical issues, recruiters also should ensure their use of AI offers clear explanations for its outcomes, enables candidates to understand how the algorithms influenced their own evaluation, and provides human support when needed.
Learn more ways to use AI recruiting software ethically and efficiently with our AI Toolkit.
The benefits of AI recruiting software
We’ve covered extensively the features, functions, and benefits of AI recruiting software, but the bottom line remains the same. You want to grow your business. And to do that, you need the right tools.
Taking into account all the advantages mentioned above, AI can translate into substantial growth for your company by:
- Accelerating your hiring funnel by using cutting-edge automation and quick actions
- Providing end-to-end visibility with data, analytics, and robust reporting
- Improving candidate retention thanks to consistent engagement through multiple messaging platforms
- Hiring more qualified workers through detailed evaluations and assessments
The Fountain approach to smarter recruitment and hiring
From the applicant’s point of view, Fountain AI prompts visitors to a careers site to apply through a series of questions and actions. The applicant engages with the AI tool just like they would chat with a friend. The sophisticated chat function is able to collect information and documents, comprehend different ways of saying the same thing, detect misspellings, and even schedule interviews with recruiters.
Meanwhile, recruiters are able to see in their hiring platform all the information the applicant has submitted. Through programmed automated actions, only applicants who have passed the preliminary stages of the process and with the appropriate qualifications will make it to the recruiter dashboard.
