All-purpose AI: How algorithms elevate the recruiting process

When it comes to technical progress, hardly any word is currently used more often than artificial intelligence, or AI for short. It is clear that it will influence many aspects of the working world in the future, as algorithms and bots can help in finding suitable personnel. The improvement of recruiting processes is playing an increasingly important role, because finding suitable employees is becoming more and more difficult - in most cases, the sole switching of job advertisements is not enough in most cases. 

"Especially when filling IT positions, companies face major challenges. Due to digitization, companies of all industries now need IT specialists," says Christian Rampelt, Founder and CEO of dfind.com.

Bots more effective than HR
Of the uses of AI in recruiting, people in charge expect one thing above all else: lower costs at a higher speed and better quality. There are currently two applications of artificial intelligence in recruitment. On the one hand there are algorithms that take over the so-called matching mechanism. In the past, the search or pre-selection required a lot of time, because human resource managers or external service providers had to read every single application thoroughly, but now bots have taken over the first sighting. AI-based search algorithms match the needs of the company with candidate qualifications. 

"For example, we use bots that scan over 50 networks a day, as well as AI-based talent pools with more than 500 million candidate profiles. A human could not handle the analysis of such a large amount of data at all," explains Rampelt. 

Another advantage is that bots, fed with the right information, are not guided by subjective sentiments, but filter applicants by skills. Within a short time intelligent applications make a preselection, which makes the entire search process more efficient. The second field of application is only later in the recruiting process, so there are already software solutions that analyze candidates in detail by means of videos and sound recordings, in order to identify any strengths and weaknesses.

Sensitivity required
However, artificial intelligence is not the solution to all problems. As with almost all technical innovations, everything is still far from perfect. The best example of this was recently a leading online mail order company made headlines because the recruiting software was looking for specific keywords that discriminated against female applicants. 

"Algorithms continue to evolve through machine learning, but they require a very large amount of data to help them improve. However, if the dataset disrupts a particular group of people from the outset, then the algorithm maps this out. This means that if the algorithm learns the wrong thing, the objectivity is lost," explains the managing director.

Profitable combination of man and machine
Those who fear that robots will soon make all personnel decisions, conduct job interviews and that humans no longer play a role are wrong: "When filling vacant positions, not only the professional qualification plays a crucial role, but also the personality of the candidate has to fit into the searching company. Ultimately, people have to work together in a team and achieve the best possible results even in difficult situations," says Rampelt. 

For this reason, it is important to use a combination of man and machine. The time that human resource managers gain can be invested in other tasks, such as retaining found talent to ensure that the search does not start again in half a year. 

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