4 Ways to Make Hiring More Human In the Age of AI

Today, HR leaders are using AI across a wide range of tasks, including employee records management, payroll, recruitment, onboarding, and performance management. In fact, it’s estimated that 88% of businesses worldwide have implemented AI-powered tools to power their HR processes. 

In the future, AI may even be able to hire and fire employees and complete other complex, sensitive tasks like answering HR-related employee queries and communicating salary details. 

The invention of generative AI (i.e. conversational AI tools like ChatGPT)—and its rapid integration into nearly every industry and sector—has accelerated these possibilities and, consequently, has exposed a major problem emerging in HR discipline: we’re losing the “human” element in human resources.

Hiring Has Become Too Robotic

This trend is especially true in hiring, and understandably so. Hiring is a fairly uniform, standardized process with several repetitive steps—making it easy for an algorithm to understand and replicate to improve efficiency. 

When it comes to recruiting, AI can assist HR professionals in sourcing candidates, screening resumes, and identifying the most suitable candidates for a particular role. During hiring, AI can be used to conduct video interviews, personality assessments, and online tests. 

Most employers are on a perpetual journey to make hiring practices more fair to build a more diverse workforce and stay compliant with evolving employment law—and there’s a compelling argument for AI’s ability to alleviate hiring discrimination. 

Algorithms can focus on skills and exclude identifiers that might trigger unconscious bias, such as name, gender, age, and education, and can help standardize selection criteria, evaluations, and interviews to ensure that all candidates are getting measured against the same rubric. 

But, while all of this is promising, some employers are finding that they’ve been overcorrecting their hiring process with technology. Hiring is, after all, still about human connection. It’s about evaluating candidates’ skills and expertise, but it’s also about evaluating their ability to work with other people and contribute positively to company culture. 

Plus, quality candidates who are met with a wall of technology during the hiring process, rather than real people, might drop out. A new report reveals that 82% of job seekers are frustrated with an overly automated recruiting experience, and since 81% of candidates say a positive candidate experience has influenced their decision to join a company, this is something employers should be taking seriously. 

Keep the Human In Hiring 

Below are four ways human resources departments can bring more human connection to the hiring process while also leveraging the technology that makes them more efficient and less biased. 

Personalize communication. 

While templating and automating communications is a good idea for making any hiring program more efficient, a lack of personalization in those communications might turn candidates away and hurt a company’s employer brand. Simply including each candidate’s name, the position they’re applying for, and other customizations can go a long way in keeping a qualified applicant engaged.

Set expectations and improve transparency. 

Inform applicants about the stages of the process, the selection criteria, and any relevant updates or changes that may occur so they feel supported and seen during the hiring process. And, when leveraging tech solutions to improve hiring practices, be sure to work with technology partners that also prioritize this level of transparency and humanness—like a background screening partner that provides candidates with real-time mobile updates about their application status.

Center company culture. 

Today, employees crave a sense of purpose in their work. They’re looking for values-aligned organizations where they can show up as their whole, authentic selves—where their well-being is prioritized and contributions rewarded fairly. When met with a wall of technology and automation, candidates struggle to see what a company is all about and are less likely to find what they’re looking for in a work culture. 

To solve this problem, HR leaders should ensure that every piece of communication (from job descriptions to emails) highlights the employer brand and that hiring teams are trained to center company culture during interviews. 

Make help easily accessible. 

Many recruiting teams have turned to AI chatbots to provide applicants with instant help, answering FAQs about applying, benefits, or the next steps in the application process. However, chatbot responses often circle around a candidate’s desired answer, providing broad, general information that doesn’t quite get to the heart of what they need––leaving them feeling like they called a convoluted customer service hotline and wondering, “can’t I just talk to an actual human being?!”. 

To keep candidates engaged, be sure to provide ways for them to get in touch with a real person from the very beginning and encourage them to reach out with any questions as they move through the process.