From analysing your candidate’s facial expressions to delivering subtly different homepage experiences to CEOs in different industries, the rise in recruitment technology is here and we’ve identified some key trends that every recruiter needs to be aware of.
Using technology to improve your interview techniques…
According to Glassdoor.com, the average interview process in the UK takes 27.5 days! It’s becoming increasingly inconvenient and time consuming for a candidate to have to travel to a recruiter for an initial interview and then to prospective employers on several different occasions whilst trying to maintain their existing workload.
Effective recruiters are therefore looking at ways of reducing the hours needed for this process, to provide a streamlined, more productive interview method.
This is where the wonders of technology step in.
Techniques such as video interviewing and the social curriculum vitae are not exactly new to the scene, but they do save a great deal of time for all involved, as well as expanding location potential, ever widening that applicant pool.
Growth in technology has meant that this trend has started to evolve, and some businesses are now using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to change the interview process completely.
A selection of major companies are said to have ditched the formal face-to-face interview and traditional CV in preference of the Linkedin profile, social media applications, interactive games and smartphone video interviews. AI can even be used to analyse a candidates’ facial expressions during a video job interview!
There is a great video example in an article by Minda Zetlin, (Inc.com):
Not only does the use of algorithms to prioritise the best candidates for interviews save human time and effort, this tech heavy method of application also suits the growing expectation of instant-gratification from the next wave of job-hungry graduates.
Diversity is still a very hot topic. Technology can help here too…
Using technology to improve interview techniques leads us nicely onto another very important ever-growing recruitment subject, diversity in the workplace.
There are some scary statistics out there suggesting that your age, gender, race, hometown, and even the sound of your name can still significantly impact your chances of being selected for interview, due to unconscious bias.
Adopting technologies that use algorithms during the initial selection process automatically eliminates any unconscious bias, simply leaving a selection of the best-fit candidates for that particular position.
Another way recruiters are using technology to grow a more diverse lead pool is the blind interview.
The blind interview isn’t new of course; there was a well-known experiment in the 1970’s where musicians auditioned behind a screen to hide their gender. After being solely judged on talent, the amount of women that were hired into orchestras rose substantially. This is now a common hiring technique in the industry (and a familiar approach for fans of BBC’s The Voice!).
Some recruiters choose to request a blind CV, where some or all of the demographic information is removed, then AI can be used to process this data to select the top candidates to move on to the next stage. It is said that Google go one step further by asking their applicants to take a variety of ‘blind’ psychometric and ability tests!
Recruiters can now use a range of different software to create a blind interview process that Cilla Black would be proud of!
Candidate is king, use tech to show them you care…
There is a rapid relationship shift in recruitment today where the candidate, rather than client has become the focus of the successful recruiter’s strategy.
Gone are the days when you could scroll through a vast list of potential candidates, all desperate to be picked.
The high number of recruitment firms and the increase in the number of highly specialised roles means the needle has swung in the favour of candidates, and in a candidate-driven market the importance of maintaining long term candidate relationships is increasingly crucial to success, with the onus firmly on the recruiter to put in the leg work.
It’s always worth building and maintaining a candidate relationship so that even if you don’t end up placing them, you’ll be the first they think of the next time they are looking.
To this end, Marketing Automation (MA) is a proven candidate attraction, conversion and retention tool, with many companies using the technology to run successful value-adding campaigns to their candidates. The key to marketing automation is to avoid the hard sell and use automated journeys to nurture candidates and prospects along the sales cycle with fully personalised communications, with exciting results!
Recruiters can not only analyse campaign results, but also send candidates on automated nurturing journeys to build their engagement. The tools then score them for every interaction they have with your brand, and even set up consultant alerts when they are ready for human contact.
There are numerous studies that show an increasing trend of the yearly job-hopper as well as statistics showing that the average person says in one job for between 3 and 5 years (depending on seniority). This suggests that the need to be at the top of a candidates recruiter list is as important as ever.
Personalisation is another way many different companies are developing a closer relationship with their audience. According to a study by Experian Marketing Services, “Personalized promotional mailings have 29 percent higher unique open rates and 41 percent higher unique click rates than non-personalized mailings”.
Independent research, courtesy of the Harvard Business Review, tells us that personalisation can reduce candidate acquisition costs by as much as 50 percent, lift revenues by 5 to 15 percent, and increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10 to 30 percent.
But for the really exciting stuff, we turn to Boston Consulting Group whose independent research confirms what we’ve long suspected. Businesses that employ automation for their personalisation efforts are growing at 3x the rate of those that don’t, with annual revenue increases of between 6 and 10 percent.
Marketing technology is also making waves with persona-based marketing. Categorising your candidates by specific needs and characteristics allows you to use marketing automation to show different content to each different persona. For example, a law graduate will see a different page on your website than a medical graduate, instantly and automatically providing a highly relevant experience that converts candidates.
So what have we learned here today folks?
In conclusion, technology is fast developing to help your business tackle the rising trends in the recruitment industry. With an aim to enhance rather than replace certain roles, it’s time to embrace these changes and use technology to provide the best service and the greatest business returns.
