AINews & Analysis

How Big Data Analytics Is Changing The Face Of Recruitment

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A recent report by Harvard Business Review cited that close to 71 percent of CEOs view human capital as the topmost factor for sustainable economic value, while according to 43 percent, investing in people is a major priority. However, it hasn’t been an easy job for the recruiters to tap the right talent for the jobs on list.

According to a survey by worldwide recruiter Hays, organizations are expected to hire in high volumes in 2018, but their plans may get hampered due to shortage of skills that they are looking for.  As a result, employers and recruiters are continually working towards improving the ways of sourcing, hiring and retaining the best talent. 

The pattern of recruiting talent has been evolving continuously and few of the key drivers include:

1.      Hiring in a machine-led era: Increased use of AI-based technology platforms that use Big Data for taking decisions faster and to automate the repetitive hiring process

2.      Less use of job portals: Many of the major recruitment portals are finding it difficult to keep up with the increased demand of the job seekers in this high-speed digital era

3.      Social media recruitment: Interactive social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook are helping in crowdsourcing talent to a large extent

4.      Gig Economy and Independent Working: The trend of full-time employment are declining with the growth in Gig Economy and independent / freelance working

5.      Skills versus Experience: Skills are more valued today while degrees and past experiences are losing their edge while hiring

Why and How Technology Helps the Recruitment Process

Recruitment continues to be one of the toughest problems that businesses are facing today – one of the reasons being the right candidates are unaware of the opportunities that are suitable for them.

Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Robot Recruiters, Talent Analytics and Big Data are gradually bring in sweeping changes within the recruitment world as the recruiter finds himself in an interesting point between man and machines. While we have always heard about automation, data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) always lending a helping hand to businesses to improve their processes, it is also true that these have started to solve the problems of human capital.

Organizations, until a few years back, have not been proactive in their approach towards talent acquisition. HR professionals have struggled to source candidates through time consuming processes, resulting in reduced productivity levels. With technologies like AI, the method of sourcing the right talent has become easier and faster. Organizations using AI, predictive data analytics, machine learning have been to find candidates without any bias, assess them better and prevent taking wrong decisions due to false logic.

Take for example, if your organization needs to hire over 20 .NET developers, it becomes a skill-based hiring requirement. It may not be easy to source the right candidates immediately but technology can help by scanning profiles from multiple platforms like LinkedIn and Naukri. Herein, AI and Big Data help in conducting a contextual search to source the right candidates faster. This is creating a big impact on volume hiring, especially for junior and mid-level hiring.

Add to this, using data analytics seems to the new way of recruiting in organizations. When it comes to recruitment, data has always been one of the major decision making sources for the hiring managers. Education qualifications, professional experience, skill aptitude test results have always been common sources of information to determine the potential of a shortlisted candidate. However, with time, the pattern of evaluating a candidate has also evolved. Today, as HR teams, we collect data ranging from the engagement level of the candidate, overall happiness quotient and the likelihood of continuing with a company. 

Conclusion

Recruitment is evolving and will continue to do so. From being a less competitive industry with fewer agencies helping you source the best talent with index cards, hand written notes and making conversations with the client, it is now about tapping talent through technology. Needless to say, there will be more innovative ways of recruitment and technological intervention leading us to keep upskilling ourselves to stay digitally savvy.

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