Maintaining The Human Element In Recruitment

Recruitment always has been, and always will be, about people. So, in a world of advancing technology and increasing automation, where do we draw the line? Regardless of what technology is out there to help us with our recruitment processes, we need to always be mindful of maintaining a human element to that process. 

Relationship Management

It can be hard to find the right balance, but the right technology can help you manage it. Even the most sophisticated tools lack the emotional intelligence of humans, and it’s this aspect that helps to build and nurture relationships with future talent. Many organisations choose to use proactive sourcing to create and maintain relationships with candidates – a very useful method since it allows for connections with passive candidates too. 

Data-Driven Recruitment

Recruitment has become increasingly about data, even more so now that there is a variety of tools we can use to discover data that will help us find that perfect match. Of course, data is one of the most useful tools we have at our disposal and we’d be foolish not to use it. It’s at this point where finding the right balance comes into play. Using big data is not the be-all and end-all and should be used to compliment your own knowledge you’ve gathered from years in the field. If data seems to suggest something you don’t feel is right, it doesn’t mean that it’s what you have to do – our instincts are still important.   

Artificial Intelligence vs Emotional Intelligence

One of the biggest buzz words in recruitment at the moment, it can be easy to get lost in it all. One thing that AI can’t do, is go for a coffee and build relationships with people. When trying to find the best talent or recruiting for a role where there is quite a lot of competition for that talent, one of the best strategies for recruiting is essentially building relationships. People value personal interactions and trust, and this can become even more important when trying to attract passive candidates. 

Social Recruiting

Social recruiting has been growing in popularity for some time now. For most organisations, especially those with high volume recruitment, adopting a social recruiting strategy helps to communicate and display their employer branding and culture to help nurture future talent. 

For example, many organisations have adopted a ‘careers’ page on Facebook, which they use as a community to interact with a variety of different people. These posts and interactions are an extremely valuable method in portraying an organisation as an excellent place to work – something which is unlikely to be achieved by automation and AI.  

How Do I Find the Right Balance?

Tools can only take you so far. This doesn’t mean that they’re not absolutely vital to your recruitment process – this couldn’t be further from the truth. So, as hiring processes become increasingly automated, how is the role of recruiters changing? 

It can be very easy to get carried away with automating recruitment processes – there are programs which can do so for almost every step. One thing that will likely never change is the face-to-face interview. But do we really want to be scheduling face-to-face interviews with candidates we don’t really know that much about, simply because they’ve sailed through all the automated phases of the recruitment process? 

Every hiring process will be different – what works for one organisation does not mean it will definitely work for another. So this makes it hard to truly identify what the “right balance” is. Instead of pretending to have the magic formula, here’s a few things to consider when discovering what’s right for you and your organisation: 

1. You should use automation to cover the longer, more timely aspects of recruiting – such as screening CV’s. This is extremely justifiable, as no one can be expected to sit and manually search each individual application received when that number is in the hundreds (or even thousands). 
2. Consider trying to add a personal touch to the areas where you have technology in place. For example, do you require your applicants to do online assessments or video interviews? You can make this more personal by including video-recorded questions, so it feels a lot more interactive for the candidate. 
3. If you find that a task you currently do manually is extremely useful in adding value to your recruitment process, you should probably keep doing it that way. Ideally, you should be automating manual tasks so that you can actually spend more time focusing on the human element of recruiting – not using it as an excuse to not have to communicate with candidates unless absolutely necessary. 
4. Consider the candidate experience. It helps to think about how you would feel about going through a process like yours. It would probably become a bit boring for candidates to be passed through from one system to another with any form of real interaction. 
5. Lastly, try and add personal touches through automated communication. Sure, your ATS or your video interview provider might be able to send out automated emails to candidates once they’ve completed certain stages of the process. But make sure to communicate these in a way that represents your company culture – they don’t have to be extremely formal!  
6. Both technology and the human element of recruitment are key to the success of any recruitment campaign. But the human element Is what will make the biggest impact on candidates and the main thing that will leave a good impression of your organisation and its culture. So, don’t over-do it! 

Our Ultimate Guide to Recruitment Technology outlines the most used recruitment software and how it can help your recruitment process. Give it a read and see which will be most effective for you!