Recruitment is a tough scene nowadays. This is especially true for the IT sector, which is booming, along with all of its related fields. In the United States, only medical jobs overshadow the IT sector when it comes to career opportunities and salaries. This dynamic is certainly true for a lot of other first-world countries.

That’s why recruiters have to deal with tons of candidates daily. This lowers their proactive capabilities, since instead of active recruitment tactics, they get stuck in paperwork and interviews. After a while, it turns into a juggling contest among HR employees, where they have to find the time to seek out specific talent and not to miss a great candidate that comes in through the inbound recruitment pipeline or any other channel.

Here’s where chatbots can really make a difference. They can automate some of the rudimental tasks and get all of the grunt work out of recruiters’ agendas. The reality is pretty grim for many HR/recruitment professionals – a great chunk of their responsibilities can be automated and handed over to artificial intelligence. Chatbots are an integral part of this automation push and there are plenty reasons why.

Not ‘How’ or ‘What’, But ‘Where’

You probably use one of the popular messaging apps. They’re convenient, simple and easy to use. They’re like SMS messages on steroids. Some of them are even taking over your phones, like Facebook Messenger, which tries to integrate all of your messages (texts, etc.) under its interface. So even if you don’t want to use a messaging app, you might not have any apparent alternatives pretty soon.

Communication is the primary tool for a recruiter, and today’s candidates feel comfortable using messaging applications. In fact, messaging apps have already taken over major social networks and their native smartphone products.

With a constant barrage of messages coming in, using a chatbot for communication through messaging apps is the only logical step towards automation and higher efficiency. All of this translates into better communication.

Over 40% of candidates never heard back from a company. Recruiters don’t even have time to respond. Some of them may actually be lazy. A tiny portion is simply unprofessional. Imagine a candidate that’s been shoved through a pipeline like this? They might be a ‘junior’ right now, but watch them say ‘nope’ when you contact and they become a ‘senior’. A great example of negative PR for an employer.

All of these things can be taken care of with a messaging chatbot, which will contact candidates during specific stages of their recruitment process. For example, Pal will converse will all of your candidates. He will never get tired. He’s always available.

Companies Can’t Keep Up with Eager Candidates

Twenty candidates per hire is a number that reflects today’s job market. Imagine that you have 50 positions to fill in an average IT company. That’s a thousand candidates. For a growing company it’s important to get people on board ASAP. For a big enterprise, it’s important to fill necessary positions as people ‘move around’ the organization or quit.

Chatbots, like GoBe, can take over initial contact, pre-screening and other stages of the process, removing most of the unwanted candidates during the early stages.

Recruitment Is Ripe for Change

If you’ve recently been on an interview or interviewed someone, then you probably know that the recruitment process hasn’t changed in a while. Those ‘how to shine during your interview’ tips that you saw online a couple of years ago are still relevant today. Sadly.

Same goes for recruiters. Yes, AI is slowly making its way into HR and recruitment. But it hasn’t seen that big of a push and subsequent innovations that take candidates through the hiring process. Although there is plenty of tools at recruiters’ disposal and plenty of data to analyze when it comes to hiring processes.

Ari uses the power of artificial intelligence to chat with candidates. This is a highly customizable chatbot that creates conversation-like experiences for candidates.

Impress AI allows recruiters to automate the interviewing process. Something that was hard to imagine just recently.

Mya’s creators state that this chatbot can take over 75% of recruitment duties. Maybe that’s why recruiters don’t like to actually exercise innovative practices? That’s a shame, because there are things indeed that chatbots aren’t likely to master in the nearest future.

Humanication

Yes, that’s a word that we just made up. Deal with it. However, it perfectly describes the most important part of the recruitment process. Communication between humans.

Many of today’s candidates are pretty fickle. Especially when there are jobs that are extremely hard to fill. These people require human touch. A recruiter is someone who generates the first impression about the company. A valuable candidate for a very important position can’t simply be left alone with a chatbot.

Candidates Are Robots Too

Chatbots use data as an evolutionary tool. So do candidates. There are people who are great at interviews, but fail at their jobs. Simply because they have all of the right answers, just like a robot would. Recruiters are perfect filters with these kinds of candidates, who might be easily greenlit by an automated software, like a chatbot.

Chatbots Are Not Real

You can’t touch them. You can’t see the look on their face. You can’t see them talk. And recruitment events are held for a reason. They allow recruiters to actually engage people on a personal level. Something that’s not even available during a one-on-one via Skype or Hangouts. Chatbots can’t and won’t ever take over this role.

Conclusion

Recruitment is a great niche for automation and AI-based solutions that can already take over a great chunk of a recruiter’s responsibilities. Chatbots are a prime example of a modern technology that’s taking over the recruitment niche, as it takes care of some of the grunt work that recruiters have to deal with. Chatbots can also take care of interviews, although such an approach is questionable, as it doesn’t build the relationships between companies and potential hires. And this is something only a recruiter can perform – communicating directly with candidates, serving as the ‘face’ of the company and a candidate’s gateway to their next job.