The Future of Automation When It Comes To Staffing
There’s a lot of talk these days about artificial intelligence especially when it comes to the staffing industry. However, keep in mind that it is still a work in progress but is also moving quickly to help resolve some of staffing’s biggest challenges.
Artificial intelligence is currently mostly represented by automated workflows, meaning a combination of technologies that automate the workflow in the smartest ways possible. At the moment, there aren’t many situations in which a machine can take the process from beginning to end. While it can create incredible efficiencies, there’s still a challenge for various technologies and platforms in order to integrate seamlessly. Here’s how it works today and what the future might produce in terms of expected outcomes.
What does an automated workflow look like?
For anyone who works in staffing, they’re already in the know. In most cases, a hiring manager creates a request for talent and that order goes to the supplier or the staffing company’s request system. If companies have that first tier of automation in place, orders placed in the vendor management system are auto-populated on behalf of the candidate tracking system. If they aren’t, clients have to log into these platforms, find the specific job order and then manually enter the job into their applicant tracking system.
From Sourcing To Matching
Once you’ve got your candidates in the system, artificial intelligence can then pinpoint candidates within the system and use search aggregators to comb other databases for matches. From this point, a candidate engagement system can create automated engagements with the intended list of candidates.
With a relatively simple AI implementation on the candidate side, user data can help refine the results that recruiters receive on their end.
The Ongoing Search For A One-Size-Fits-All Solution
As it exists today, there’s no standard protocol that everyone in the staffing industry uses. Staffing companies vary in their adoption of different parts of these technologies because there are so many technology partners, platforms and vendors being used at any given time.
The systems that win will ultimately be those that can talk to those solutions through the process, aggregate data and use all of this imperative information to refine their machine learning algorithms.
Where Automation Works Well
Although there is no perfect AI solution that works in all situations, there are circumstances where the technology is getting close. For particular job searches, automated solutions can use matching algorithms to find candidates, automatically engage those candidates with an email link to start the screening process. This works well for specific software engineering type roles. Some situations like screening for entry-level positions don’t work as well because the task is somewhat more general. Soft skills are also tough like for sales positions or determining whether a candidate is a good cultural fit.
How AI Sets Staffing Firms Apart
The staffing company that tops the heap of many others will complete the process faster than everyone else. After all, speed is the key to efficiency!