Technology in the talent workforce management industry is constantly evolving. New advances blend with new demands from the market to ensure that new innovations are constantly erupting. Indeed, the latest of these that has hit the talent industry is the use of artificial intelligence in vendor management. This allows for not only the shortlisting and curation of talent but also control over candidate engagement, reducing the need for human interaction in the application process.
While this market was estimated to be worth $1.75 billion in 2017, it is expected to grow to at least $3.1 billion by 2025 and may even go beyond that as the global pandemic has shifted how and where we work.
It’s hard to argue that AI is the next big thing in the talent industry; but what level of impact has it had so far? And in what areas does it still have room to explode?
Can we expect the trickle of AI adoption in the talent industry to explode into a torrent?
The biggest, and most disruptive, change influencer in the talent industry has been the shifting of employers’ and employees’ priorities in the post-pandemic world. Workers have greater demand for increased flexibility and working conditions and many have chosen to use the pandemic as a route to rethink their careers altogether.
This has left employers and the talent industry with unique challenges and record-high job vacancies. While the skillsets and talent among the workforce are arguably there to meet this deficit, it still poses a huge workload for both human resources staff and recruitment bosses to fill these gaps. Imagine the number of hours it would take a team to work through the hundreds and sometimes even thousands of applications for just one role. A taxing thought. Even more so when a good proportion of those applications can be easily filtered out because they lack the specific skillset and requirements needed for the role. This is time that can be saved through the adoption of AI.
In response to these huge shifts in the talent industry, AI has already been adopted by large numbers of companies. Indeed, in one survey 57% of hiring managers were found to be already using AI in some form of the recruitment process. This number rose to 82% of recruiters who planned to adopt AI tools in the near future. This shows that AI technology already has significant support from the industry and will certainly be more widely adopted.
While AI is the perfect tool to respond to the pressures that the talent industry faces in the post-pandemic world, what is less clear to many is the functions and roles that AI can fulfill. Indeed, many hiring managers are yet to realize the full disruptive potential that AI has to offer.
What promises can AI-enhanced talent deliver on?
The advances that AI offers can be split into two different categories.
The first of these is in the assessment of candidates that allows for a much more efficient hiring process at scale. Here AI can be used during the application process and indeed even the filtering of candidates based on their skillset.
Specifically, AI can be used by intelligent vendor management systems to provide biometric scoring for quick candidate shortlisting alongside AI-based pre-assessment solutions for fast hiring. This provides recruiters with faster access to curated talent and removes the burden and demand on human resources.
Not only this but new talent technology can engage with clients and customers on behalf of recruiters as AI-enabled chatbots and emails can help with increased candidate engagement. As a result, it can replace all the manual tasks and heavy lifting that would traditionally be carried out by recruiters such as scheduling tools and the feedback process; more evidence, were any needed, that AI represents an essential evolution in the talent industry as both a time and cost-saving measure.
Our second significant area where AI can play an important role in the talent industry is through an analytical approach, both during and after the recruitment process. Here it can give an automated analysis to recruiters so they can be better informed of hiring decisions and have a much clearer picture of their wider workforce. Specifically, it can help to identify a candidate’s social presence, providing important background information for a recruiter. Also, it can help to provide market-rate analysis to give a pricing reference for a position that helps to cut down costs. In this way, AI can help to provide an analytical overview for recruiters that proves invaluable in a fluid and everchanging employment market, especially post-pandemic.
Even after the direct recruitment process, AI technology in the talent industry can provide insights into when workers plan to return to work by giving them direct access and a unique user journey. This not only allows recruiters in their workforce planning but can also help to retain niche talent by offering flexible working and other market-driven perks. This all shows that AI is already playing a leading role in talent technology and vendor management systems and is undoubtedly the ongoing revolution for recruiters in the industry.
What does the future look like?
For many recruiters then, AI adoption has become essential to tackle the fluidity of the talent industry. The analysis into the broader market structures that AI technology provides recruiters vital information to remain agile and informed through periods of change. This works alongside AI’s assessment capabilities that allows the curation of talent and engages with customers on behalf of recruiters; significantly cutting the human resources burden, saving both time and money. It is therefore clear that AI technology has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the talent industry. It can provide all the heavy lifting for recruiters, giving data-driven approaches to hiring decisions that secure AI technologies place in the future of the talent industry. More than that, those laggards yet to adopt AI-enhanced software risk becoming frozen out of the ever-changing workforce market.
Jake Ellis
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