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What is Recruiting Automation?

This guide serves as a convenient overview, providing an executive summary and definition of what recruiting automation is as well as tips and resources to get you started.

Recruiting automation is a category of technology that allows companies to automate recruiting tasks and workflows so they can increase recruiter productivity, accelerate time-to-fill, reduce cost-per-hire and improve the overall talent profile of their organization. Recruiting automation is a subset of Human Capital Management (HCM), a category of enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) used by companies to manage all aspects of their workforce.

What Organizations Use
Candidate Recruiting Automation Technologies?

Candidate recruiting automation technologies are used by companies looking to increase their competitive advantage in hiring. These companies recognize that the “status quo” way of hiring simply doesn’t work as well as it used to in an of age of hyper-competition for top talent. These companies are looking to achieve better results in a shorter amount of time and often with fewer resources relative to the goals they are trying to achieve.

What are examples of recruiting automation technologies?

Examples of recruiting automation technologies can be found throughout the recruiting funnel, from initial candidate sourcing to the final hiring decision. Some of the categories within recruiting automation are as follows:

Recruiting automation technologies have been applied to the Candidate Sourcing and Engagement to automate the process of identifying and engaging with passive candidates. These technologies aggregate and analyze data about candidates’ skills and experience and then match them to job opportunities. These solutions also automate candidate outreach and follow-up to increase engagement. Rival is a leader in this space, helping some of the world’s most innovative companies modernize their sourcing strategy and engagement strategy.

A.I. chatbot and candidate engagement technologies automate candidate screening, applicant status updates, and other aspects of the candidate experience, helping companies to provide a streamlined, consistent and scalable interface to individuals considering employment opportunities. Our candidate engagement platform automates communications at every stage across the candidate journey, saving recruiters precious time while delighting applicants with status updates and feedback.

Recruitment automation technologies are allowing for the partial or complete automation of the scheduling process. These technologies offer the promise that one of the most tedious parts of the hiring workflow, scheduling candidates for interviews, can be largely automated via their technology. Rival automates interview scheduling for a wide range of interview formats including 1:1, panel, group, sequential, and batch Interview Day interviews.

An area of tremendous innovation is around evaluation of candidates for employment fit. Technologies in this space administer coding tests, helping companies to identify top developers, and help companies test for non-technical attributes that lead to better hires. Additionally, recruiting automation technologies are allowing for automation of the interview process through digital on-demand interviewing. Finally, background checks have also undergone a recruiting automation transformation. Rival brings the entire interview process online – replacing phone screens with on-demand digital interviews and on-sites with live digital interviews – while automating the scheduling and communication process to ensure a seamless experience for candidates.

Recruitment marketing and candidate relationship management (CRM) platforms help companies maintain relationships with candidates on an ongoing basis at scale (vs. simply when applicants are in an active interview process).

Once a candidate becomes an applicant for a specific job, applicant tracking systems are used to manage the interview process. Not all ATS software leverages intelligent technology, but the more modern vendors heavily leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the process and improve both the candidate and recruiter experience. We integrate with the majority of leading ATS providers, allowing you to easily connect your preferred recruiting technologies and amplify the value of your investments.

A newer breed of technologies offers the possibility that AI and machine learning can help companies better understand who has applied for their jobs and help them to uncover good fit candidates who might be already present in their ATS or CRM.

What factors are driving recruiting automation?

Increased Competition for High-Level Talent

Historically low unemployment and an increasing skills gap has led to a war for talent at many of the world’s leading companies. The intensification of the talent wars has led many companies to invest in technology that can help them achieve engage with qualified talent faster.

Candidate Information Overload

The sheer amount of information about candidates, from online profiles to inbound resumes, is exceeding the ability of recruiting teams to process. Most recruiters simply don’t have enough time to adequately source, assess and screen candidates. Recruiting automation systems help companies analyze candidate data quickly to help them make better decisions, fast.

Better Tech to Achieve Hiring Goals

Recruiting automation is not a new idea. People have been talking about how recruiting will be automated for many years. However, until recently the technology did not exist at scale to move the needle on hiring efficiency. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning and rise of open source software have spurred innovation that makes the promise of more efficient and productive recruiting teams a reality.

What are the benefits and ROI of recruiting automation?

Recruiting automation technologies are used by companies looking to increase their competitive advantage in hiring. These companies recognize that the “status quo” way of hiring simply doesn’t work as well as it used to in an of age of hyper-competition for top talent. These companies are looking to achieve better results, in a shorter amount of time and often with fewer resources relative to the goals they are trying to achieve.

Recruiter Productivity Savings

Recruiting automation technologies excel at eliminating inefficiencies from talent operations. By instituting recruiting automation capabilities, companies can expect to achieve an increase in recruiting staff productivity by up to 50 percent. The biggest boost, of course, will come to companies transitioning from labor-intense or manual recruiting systems or processes.

Faster Time-to-Hire

The average time it takes to fill a given position in the United States is 42 days, according to SHRM’s 2017 Human Capital Benchmarking Report. Companies who enable recruiting automation reduce time to hire by between of up to 64%.

Higher Quality Candidates

The recruiting automation process helps ensure that all the best-fit candidates were identified and engaged in the recruiting process, resulting in better quality hires and a higher performing organization.

What are common misconceptions about recruiting automation?

Recruiting automation means we won’t need recruiters anymore.

This is perhaps the most common misconception about recruiting automation. Just as Sales automation didn’t eliminate the need for salespeople and marketing automation didn’t eliminate the need for marketers, recruiting automation won’t eliminate the need for recruiters. If anything, higher-skilled workers like recruiters will benefit from automation as it will make them more productive and productivity gains lead to higher compensation and more empowerment within the organization.

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Recruiting automation systems will re-enforce bias in the hiring process.

Unfortunately, traditional manual recruiting processes can be fraught with bias (as this University of Chicago study attests). Recruiting automation can help companies to reduce and/or eliminate bias in their hiring processes by alerting them to situations where unconscious bias may be involved. In addition, recruiting automation can help to minimize bias in candidate sourcing systems (e.g., basing a judgment about a candidate on something like their photo on LinkedIn) through anonymization and other techniques that shield a recruiter from non-relevant information.

Recruiting automation systems will be poorly received by recruiters.

While the fear of “the robots are coming for our jobs!” is understandable, the reality is that most of the things that will be automated in recruiting are the low-value, tedious and manual tasks that most recruiters don’t enjoy doing. Very few people got into recruiting to manually update spreadsheets, craft intricate Boolean strings to find candidates or go endlessly back and forth with candidates trying to nail down perfect interview times. When you automate low-level and tedious work, recruiters can spend more time on high-value and more enjoyable work. For many recruiters this means spending more time actually interacting with candidates, focusing on the candidate experience and building their employer brand.

When should you invest in recruiting automation?

If your team is having trouble hitting goals or scaling the recruiting processes you’ve put in place, it’s time to focus your efforts on developing a recruiting automation strategy.Below are some good questions to ask yourself when deciding if recruiting automation is the right move for your organization.

  • Are your recruiters overwhelmed with the number of reqs on their plate?
  • Are open reqs sitting unfilled for extended periods of time?
  • Is your average time to hire above the benchmark for companies in your space?
  • Do you rely on outside assistance (RPOs or agencies) to fill your reqs?
  • Do you have a proven strategy that you would like to scale?