Demand for new hires tends to be at its greatest during the first quarter of the year, particularly January, when businesses or organizations return from the holidays eager to hit the ground running. For hiring and recruitment agencies, and HR professionals working in high-volume industries, this can be a challenging period. Candidate screening eats up a lot of time and resources. Complicating matters is the fact that COVID-19 lockdowns have resulted in employment opportunities becoming more competitive than before, making it difficult to assess and engage with all candidates to find the one best-suited for the role.
Fortunately, chatbots can help and have been helping on all of these fronts. Organizations which use chatbots in the hiring process are able to reduce their screening timeframes by 60%, with some saving as much as 30% in sourcing costs. Career sites which have chatbots have been found to convert more candidates, with 95% more jobseekers becoming leads.
There are promising statistics, and in this blog post we explore some of the key benefits that chatbots bring to the hiring and recruitment process.
Save time on screening candidates
Embedding a trained AI chatbot with NLP in the application process can speed up the time needed to screen candidates. This is because chatbots can be trained to ask candidates basic questions related to the key requirements of the job position – such as their educational qualifications or years of experience in the relevant field. This helps determine whether they are a good fit for the role. If they are, then their applications are passed on to the relevant staff members. 72% of HR professionals take between 1 and 2 months to fill a role, but this time can be halved by chatbots who ensure staff focus their time and energy on only highly qualified candidates. What’s more, chatbots eliminate unconscious bias by ignoring the personal details of candidates. A Deloitte report found that traditional interviewing may no longer be a reliable way to screen candidates, and that AI-related efforts to control unconscious bias are now on the rise.
Save time on scheduling interviews
56% of recruiters spend more than a full working day to schedule interviews. With a chatbot, this process can be streamlined. By having access to the calendars of interviewers and relevant staff members, the chatbot can provide candidates with a selection of dates and times for them to choose from, and then automatically book the meeting and notify both parties.
Increase opportunities for talent acquisition
A Glassdoor survey found that 76% of hiring managers say attracting quality candidates is their biggest challenge. Fortunately, there are chatbots for talent acquisition. Such a chatbot deployed on a business’s career page or job board postings can engage with visitors in a number of valuable ways. This includes answering their questions, sharing relevant job postings, collecting pre-qualification information like their resume, or even connecting them with a recruiter if they meet certain requirements – for example, if a company is looking for a skilled data scientist and one with the right experience happens to visit their career page. All of these features are available both on desktop and mobile platforms. Chatbots can also be trained to dip into a business’s pool of previous applicants to find those that might be a good fit for new roles. They can then connect with approved applicants to share information on the new role to try to convince them to apply.
Improve candidate experience and brand reputation
During the application process, candidates may reach out with questions either about the position or the company – for example, what kind of benefits can they expect, or what is the leave policy like, or is there any further information available on company culture. Such questions can be time-intensive and difficult for staff to answer. But a chatbot can be trained to instantly respond and provide candidates with everything they need to know. If there’s a question they simply cannot answer, then it can be relayed to staff for a timely response. Additionally, they can collect candidate feedback, so businesses know if there’s scope for improvement. And with the right triggers, chatbots can update candidates on their application status to keep them in the loop. Candidates appreciate such clarity, and in the long run this reflects well on an organization’s culture and professionalism.
Hiring and Recruitment Chatbots
Chatbots are indispensable in hiring and recruitment, lightening the load and finding the best talent. They make life easier for both hiring companies and HR professionals – especially at busy times of the year when a lot of companies are hiring and people are seeking new roles.
Out of all the methods businesses can use to recruit the best talent and support jobseekers, such as email, LinkedIn, telephone or video, chatbots are one of the most efficient and easy-to-use solutions. They take seconds to set up, help jobseekers remotely, and can automate the application process, keeping applicants interested in roles and reducing manual effort for recruiters – thereby saving time and costs overall. It makes sense to closely involve hiring managers when training chatbots, as they understand what information is important and must be made available to candidates, as well as what chatbots should look out for during candidate screening and other stages of the job application process. For hiring, recruitment and talent acquisitions teams, the right chatbot can be the difference between falling behind and racing ahead.
If you’d like to learn more about how Instabot can help with talent acquisition, get in touch or book a demo.