With today’s tighter labour market, candidate experience has become increasingly important to attract talent. Will the next wave of recruiting involve the use of a recruitment chatbot?

Randstad found 82% of job seekers believe the ideal recruiter interaction is a mix between innovative technology and personal, human interaction. 

Watch our video on how recruitment chatbots are changing the hiring process:

Workopolis found 43% of candidates never hear back from a company after one touchpoint.

This applicant black hole is a problem because over time it will weaken your employer brand. If prospective employees hear from their friends and colleagues that your hiring process is generally unresponsive, some of the best candidates may simply not apply.

On the flip side, it’s a challenge for employers to communicate well with all their candidates.

For high volume recruiting, this would require communicating with thousands of candidates, in addition to a recruiter’s normal screening functions and other duties.

The solution that could benefit candidate experience without burdening recruiters with more work is a part of the AI for recruiting tech space: the recruitment chatbot.

Fact #1: A recruitment chatbot uses AI to understand and respond to messages

Similar to Alexa, Siri, and Google Home, a recruitment chatbot uses AI such as machine learning and natural language processing to understand a person’s messages and know how to respond.

A chatbot can be used within various mediums:

• email
• SMS
• social media profiles like Facebook
• messaging apps like Slack
• specific software such as an ATS

Fact #2: A recruitment chatbot has the potential to get to scale quickly

The recruitment chatbot might become commonplace faster than we think.

The AI and natural language processing needed for a recruitment chatbot revolve around conversational content that relates to questions a candidate might ask during the recruitment process.

In other words, a recruitment chatbot doesn’t necessarily need to be able to answer broader questions like, “What’s the meaning of life?”

It just needs to be programmed to work within a specific set of common questions related to the job search.

Fact #3: Candidates feel comfortable interacting with a chatbot

The majority of candidates are receptive to interacting with a chatbot.

In a recent survey by Allegis, 58% of candidates were comfortable interacting with AI and recruitment chatbots in the early stages of the application process.

An even larger percentage – 66% – were comfortable with AI and chatbots taking care of interview scheduling and preparation.

Candidates are aware the process might not be human-to-human at every touchpoint, but value the chance to receive information in whatever way they can.

As that attitude continues to evolve, so will the recruitment chatbot.

Fact #4: A chatbot can help recruiters with administrative tasks

It’s estimated that up to 65% of resumes received for a role are completely ignored.

In real time, a recruitment bot can:

• collect information from candidates such as their resume and contact information
• ask screening questions about candidates’ experience, knowledge, and skills
• rank candidates on metrics such as qualifications, engagement, or recent activity
• answer FAQs about the job and the application process
• schedule an interview with a human recruiter

Over time, the machine learning component of the recruitment chatbot will begin to understand which metrics it should be looking for based on the data collected and rank candidates accordingly.

This information collected by the chatbot is fed into an ATS or sent directly to a human recruiter to follow up.

Fact #5: A chatbot can help recruiters save a lot of time

According to SHRM, the average cost of hire is $4,129 and the average time to hire is 42 days.

Industry estimates predict a chatbot could automate 70-80% of your top of funnel interactions.

By automating a large part of qualifying and scheduling while simultaneously keeping candidates engaged, a recruitment chatbot can dramatically lower both cost of hire and time to hire.

Between 50-70% of applicants to a given role are not qualified.

If interaction with a recruitment chatbot can more quickly screen out unqualified candidates, humans can focus their efforts on building relationships with interested candidates who are.

Summary: 5 facts about using a recruitment chatbot

1. Chatbots uses machine learning and natural language processing to understand and respond to messages.
2. Chatbots are gaining popularity for their potential to improve the candidate experience.
3. A chatbot can help recruiters by collecting information on candidates, ask screening questions, answer FAQs, and schedule interviews.
4. 66% of candidates are comfortable interacting with a chatbot.
5. A chatbot could automate 70-80% of top-of-funnel recruiting activities.

This article was first published on Ideal.com. 

Photo Credit: Teknoformat Flickr via Compfight cc