Tech-enabled hiring and AI workforce analytics: helping companies find the right talent
As a modern business leader, you would have already come to terms with the fact that AI is not a self-driven Terminator or a smart metal suit that gives insane superpowers to people, and neither is it an all-ending ‘evil’ as popularised by Sci-Fi movies. These days, modern AI tools are being deployed for several purposes. Hence, it is only natural for AI to augment HR functions such as workforce analytics and hiring. About 82% of Fortune 500 companies have already deployed tech-enabled hiring processes to meet their talent needs and, undoubtedly, the remaining are also likely to follow suit.
Factors driving the need for tech-enabled hiring
The pandemic disrupted in-person hiring processes and compelled HR personnel to use remote hiring and skill test tools. AI, machine learning, and data analytics tools have become increasingly sophisticated over the years, and pre-employment testing and skill assessment platforms have proven to be key enablers in the new normal of recruitment. At two of the leading tech enterprises of our times (Google and Apple), we have seen a steady switch towards skill-based hiring over conventional resume-based hiring. Both companies registered a drop of 18% in job roles that necessarily required ‘graduate’ degrees. The need of the hour for most companies is to find the right people for the job, and that’s where accurate workforce skill assessment (technical as well as soft skills) is crucial.
Another factor that has driven tech-based hiring processes is the emergence of the digital business ecosystem itself. If we look at the data from 2010, only 31% of the recruiters struggled in finding the right candidates. However, in 2022, about 75% of the recruiters admitted to struggling on this count. Considering the fact that the number of educated jobseekers has only been increasing in this period, it clearly highlights a skill mismatch, leading to a global talent shortage. The changing nature of jobs has also made analysing skills and identifying improvement areas necessary to make the workforce future ready. As we stare at another economic recession and rising inflation, many companies are mulling a rollback of upskilling and reskilling initiatives as cost-cutting measures. This has led to high-quality talent switching industries to find career paths that are more sustainable and rewarding.
In this volatile scenario, there is a global shortage of talent, and precise skill assessment and role matching through AI workforce analytics is the ultimate solution. Companies can not only find the right talent through technology and AI analytics but also reduce their employee churn considerably. As per research, 69% of employees are likely to spend at least 3 years with the employer when provided with a hassle-free hiring and onboarding experience. The key to delivering such an experience is to establish a positive connection with prospective candidates before the competitors. Tech companies spend a lot of time, effort, and money on campus hiring, and everyone wants to secure the best talent. However, there are just too many colleges and candidates to cover manually, and within the short span of campus hiring drives. Thus, the smart hiring process is now being driven by advanced tech-driven pre-onboarding tools that engage high-potential candidates even months before the actual hiring event. Companies start analyzing students about to graduate and familiarize them with the company culture beforehand. This kind of hand-holding and early engagement is likely to make the candidates more inclined to accept the offer and stay with the company even when the campus recruitment drive brings other competitors in.
Technology can help companies collect and analyze data on their hiring process, including metrics such as time to hire, cost per hire, and candidate demographics. This can help companies make data-driven decisions to improve their recruitment strategies and processes. Not just that, a world-class AI-powered workforce analytics solution can reduce turnaround time by 60% and increase the number of qualified candidates by 70%. That’s because it would simultaneously and digitally evaluate several candidates across different campuses seamlessly. This way, not only skill leaders will have access to objective, data-driven insights to navigate the always-in-flux talent landscape, but they’d be able to drive real-time change in the acquisition process.
Further, with tech-driven hiring, the conscious and unconscious biases based on ethnicity, gender, race or religion, etc., get eliminated, and the hiring process becomes fair and inclusive. About 78% of candidates value diversity in the workforce and are likely to see companies promoting diversity favorably. It has also been observed that companies with diversity of workforce and board members are more profitable and have higher cash flows. The most advanced talent assessment tools are also fool-proof and candidates can’t cheat or manipulate their way through the hiring process. These tools test candidates on their technological as well as soft skills and behavioral traits to ensure optimum job-candidate match.
Conclusion
An AI workforce analytics solution would offer a much larger set of skills tests than human evaluators. For instance, iMocha offers comprehensive skills intelligence, including skill benchmarking and forecasting. It also offers a skill library comprising over 2500 skills including the most in-demand skills such as coding in 35+ languages such as Java, C, C#, C++, Python, Python 3, Python with ML, JavaScript, MySQL, and so on. Candidates are also tested on a diversity of cognitive skills such as thinking, reading, learning, memory, reasoning, attention to detail, etc. Essentially, tech-based hiring processes through AI workforce analytics cover every aspect of the recruitment lifecycle and ensure that there is consistency in talent-job fit. There is no doubt that the future of hiring, skill development, and workforce management will be holistically powered by such tools!
Sujit Karpe is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Co-founder of iMocha, the world’s largest skill assessment solution API platform that helps organizations build winning teams. He is a vastly experienced tech enthusiast and evangelist who has displayed great proficiency in highly impactful technology solutions for a diversity of business needs. Sujit is regarded as a great exponent of emerging technologies such as Cloud Services, Social Computing, Mobility, Enterprise Software, Software as a Service (SAAS), etc. As the CTO of iMocha, he is constantly focusing on further improving the functionality and impact of their market-leading platform and setting new benchmarks of excellence, and the views expressed in this article are his own
