Automation is revolutionizing the world of recruitment, offering extraordinary time and money savings while elevating the quality of work to new levels. In fact, 74% of hiring pros say automation is likely to replace repetitive tasks with more focus on strategic work. That stat alone should convince you to introduce automation to your recruiting processes.
However, this article will explore more reasons to invest in recruitment automation and areas you can streamline. You’ll also learn how VireUp can help and why it is already a favourite tool for talent acquisition teams in some of the largest organizations.
What is recruitment automation?
In recruitment, automation replaces tedious and repetitive tasks through technology. The idea is to cut the time spent on activities such as sending invites and scheduling and turn HR professionals' valuable attention and energy to more important activities such as strategic decision-making related to organization design, capacity planning, whom to hire and how to make employees’ lives better and thereby improve retention.
However, modern recruitment automation software can do far more than automatically send invitations and schedule calls – they can:
- Reduce errors (e.g., data entry, scheduling, screening and similar mistakes)
- Significantly improve your decision-making speed and accuracy
- Ensure no great candidates slip by in the process
They will help with resume parsing, skill assessment and testing and can even allow you to fully automate interviews, saving hundreds of hours of valuable HR staff time every month.
Why should you invest in recruitment automation?
Apart from a productivity boost recruiters will get by spending less time on mundane tasks you can automate, here are the main reasons to invest in recruitment automation:
Time and money savings
Automating repetitive tasks will free up an enormous amount of time your HR team can use on other activities. You can expect a 40% reduction in recruitment cycle time, which will result in 45% savings in hiring process costs.
High-quality candidates
Recruitment automation tools help you evaluate candidates by giving them pre-employment tests and assessments or via one-way interviews.
That means you will objectively test an unlimited number of candidates without spending additional time, ensuring you hire the best candidates in a timely manner. Since employers increasingly value skills and experience over degrees, assessing candidates' competencies becomes integral to making an informed hiring decision.
Time, cost and quality of hire are only a few of the recruiting metrics you should track. Follow the link to learn about 13 more!
Better candidate experience
Recruitment automation tools boost candidate experience in several ways:
- Detailed feedback – regardless of the interview result, each candidate can automatically get detailed feedback that will help them learn what to work on and improve their interview performance.
- Asynchronous interviewing and tests – candidates can record their interviews and take tests at their convenience from the comfort of their homes.
- Faster hiring processes – because automation will take over the grunt work, the entire process will last far shorter, and candidates won’t wait for weeks after each step to find out the result of the interview. Considering that the #1 candidate complaint is that recruitment takes too long, this saving will positively impact the candidate experience.
More accuracy and less bias
To reduce and eliminate bias, an appropriate recruitment automation tool should judge each candidate the same way. At the same time, because it collects and processes data automatically, automated hiring platforms will never be affected by fatigue or loss of concentration, which means you can expect reliable, accurate results.
Recruitment automation: What can you streamline?
Image source: Pexels
Let's now give you some areas where recruiting automation benefits are the most obvious:
Sourcing and outreaching the candidates
Finding and contacting candidates is the first task you can automate. You can start with LinkedIn Recruiter to scout for talent. It has more than 40 filters that will help you narrow down the best candidates quickly, and it will also learn from your behavior and automatically give recommendations and matches, which can uncover some hidden gems.
Then, after zeroing in on the best prospects, you can put them in a candidate pipeline and connect with them automatically with tools such as Expandi. AI will be able to understand the context and send appropriate responses based on the candidate’s answer, making the entire outreach conversation feel more natural.
Plus, it will save an enormous amount of time, as your agents won’t have to get personally involved in contacting candidates who are not even remotely interested but only focus on the ones who are open to working with your company.
Resume screening
Recruiting automation tools can also help you screen resumes at scale. Once you input the job description, better platforms will parse resumes for target keywords and then rank and highlight the key skills automatically.
Because all this happens automatically, the process ensures talent with the highest perceived chance of success doesn't slip by only because a recruiter gets tired of going through hundreds of random resumes.
Interviewing
Interviewing doesn't always have to be live, especially not in the early stages of the hiring process. Instead, video interviewing platforms allow you to conduct one-way video interviews where all candidates answer the same set of questions you prepared for that position. That way, you save an enormous amount of time and ensure the recruiting process is consistent and fair.
VireUp takes this one step further – not only that, you can automatically schedule and conduct asynchronous video interviews, and AI algorithms will help you analyze the candidates at scale, as you will get a detailed analysis without having to go through the videos manually. But, you will also see the reasoning behind the suggestions, as the unique explainable AI backs the algorithm.
Interested in learning more? We have a whole post on the benefits of VireUp video assessment.
See also: Interview evaluation form
Assessment and background checks
Depending on the skill assessment tool you choose, you will be able to automate various parts of the process:
- Testing skills and knowledge – testing platforms are an especially good option for more technical fields, as you will be able to quickly determine the level of expertise of each candidate without your agents getting involved.
- Interview automation – with platforms such as VireUp, you can schedule automated one-way interviews. What’s best, VireUp will give you insights and explanations about each candidate, and you will be able to see everything in detail without watching the interviews. Also, VireUp has a built-in spoken English assessment, and you will know each candidate's fluency level.
- Comparative analysis – not only do automation tools help with candidate assessment, but they also do a great job presenting the data. You will be able to see in one dashboard glimpse how each candidate compares to the rest, allowing you to focus on the best ones immediately.
- Background checks – some hiring automation platforms can even go through the publicly available records and perform background checks, ensuring the candidates you hire have a clean slate. Validity and privacy can be important limitations, though.
Candidate relationship management
Here's a short list of examples of how recruiting automation can enhance the relationship you have with candidates:
- Feedback loop – automation can help you both collect candidate feedback about the entire process and tell them where they can improve, all done in a timely and constructive manner. VireUp takes candidate feedback to the next level – candidates get coaching-level interview feedback for each interview question that will explain the decision and help them prepare even better in the future, leaving a lasting impression and improving employer branding.
- Email updates – regardless of the number of applicants, automation will help you notify and update candidates on their status, as well as any future job openings that might fit their profile, for those who don't make it now.
- Segmentation and analytics – most automation platforms give you detailed insights into candidates' profiles, which will allow you to highlight critical skills for the position but also allow personalized communication that will help you connect with candidates and make them more engaged.
Job ads
LinkedIn has a smart function that lets you post jobs on your company page automatically, which will increase visibility and help you attract more potential candidates. Some ATS (applicant tracking systems) also allow you to post jobs on multiple job boards simultaneously, increasing your chances of attracting top talent. Also, with the help of AI, many recruitment automation platforms will write job descriptions for you, making the recruiter’s job much easier.
Recruitment analytics
Recruitment automation platforms help you eliminate manual tasks, collect and process candidate information and conveniently display them. Better platforms will analyze the job requirements and automatically compare and rank each candidate against set criteria. That way, you will immediately see which candidates are a good option for the role and why, significantly speeding up your entire process while not compromising on the quality.
Recruitment automation: How can VireUp help?
Here’s how VireUp can help you automate your recruitment process:
Video interviewing
VireUp helps you conduct one-way video interviews with minimal effort. This type of video interviewing software eliminates the recruiter from the interview process as they are not required to be present live to ask questions or watch the interviews. As a result, the total interview time will be much shorter – for example, with VireUp, METRO increased candidate throughput by 6x and reduced recruitment lead time by 50%.
VireUp can help you develop questions based on the required competencies (if you don't already have your own to upload), and the candidates can answer them at their convenience.
The entire process lets you customize your questions in detail to suit the role. But, once you do, all of the candidates will be screened against the same questions and criteria, ensuring the entire process is free of biases.
AI-powered inputs with detailed explanations
VireUp's explainable AI provides specific evidence of its conclusions to recruiters, which means you will be able to understand the reasoning behind the analysis. Plus, because natural language processing understands the context, you won't just get recommendations because a keyword triggered it but an intelligent overview of the entire interview sentence by sentence. It literally acts as an extension of your brain, as all AI solutions should be.
VireUp also performs spoken English assessments automatically while applicants answer interview questions, so you won't have to test this separately, saving even more time and money.
Coaching-level candidate feedback
Your recruiters aren't the only ones who will get a detailed interview breakdown – candidates can get it, too. Candidate feedback ensures maximal transparency, as they have insight into the reason behind your decision.
Not many companies offer this type of coaching-level feedback to candidates, which will make yours stand out and improve the candidate experience. Plus, VireUp’s feedback is automated and won't require extra hours from your HR staff, making the entire process even more effective.
And this will show in numbers – after partnering up with VireUp, METRO received a 91% candidate satisfaction score and a 4.6 rating among interviewed candidates who applied for their prestigious internships, showing how delighted they were with the hiring process.
Conclusion
Automation tools can significantly boost the efficiency and effectiveness of your HR activities in every stage of the recruitment process. They will lead to money savings, fewer mistakes and hiring qualified candidates in less time.
VireUp can help with your interviewing process by incorporating AI into your workflow and replacing traditional face-to-face interviews with asynchronous video interviewing. Hop on a 30-minute call with us and discover why major brands like METRO, Alarko, Domino's and Coca-Cola chose VireUp as the foundation of their hiring and assessment process.
FAQs
How do you automate the recruitment process?
To automate your recruitment process, you can focus on these areas:
- Candidate sourcing and outreach
- Resume screening and parsing
- Interviewing
- Assessments
- Candidate relationship management
- Job ads
- Analytics
What is AI-powered recruitment?
AI-powered recruitment uses the latest artificial intelligence tools to automate hiring and save time. Tools such as VireUp can cut recruitment cycles by 40% and reduce total costs by as much as 45%, showing you how introducing AI in your recruitment can make an impact.
Which AI solutions do recruiters use?
Usually, recruiters and hiring managers use AI when reaching out to potential candidates and scheduling and parsing resumes. However, more sophisticated recruiting automation software such as VireUp can replace traditional interviewing with intelligent one-way video interviews, resulting in significant time savings and improved candidate experience.
Is AI the future of recruitment?
Yes. And the future is already here. AI tools are already a reality in the world of recruitment as they help hiring managers save time they would waste on redundant tasks and focus on qualified candidates. As AI technology improves, you can expect it to become an integral part of every stage of the recruitment cycle.
Instead of replacing humans, which is something you can often hear from AI skeptics, these advanced tools will improve work quality, as they will take over the mundane tasks and empower recruiters to focus on strategic work that makes a real difference, resulting in significant time and money savings and hiring better candidates.