At Paradox, we’ve always been hesitant to refer to our product as a chatbot. Instead, we call it an “assistant” — largely because we think that’s the real job to be done. To help people. To get work done. To be, well, assistive. Chatbots, on the other hand, often feel old, clunky, and almost universally detested. But a recruiting assistant? Well, that’s new and fresh and devoid of all that bad baggage that comes with chatbots.
Then again, Josh Bersin thinks the tides might be changing. And that’s because chatbots are getting a lot smarter. And more helpful.
The latest advancements in AI have brought about a chatbot revolution. Using domain-specific large language models (LLMs), we can now train AI models to better understand context and intent. And chatbots (or whatever you want to call them) can use these capabilities to level up candidate conversations.
“It looks like a chatbot, but it’s very sophisticated in its domain,” said Bersin. “It’s not simply chatting; there’s context, definitions, curation, rules.”
Recently, Bersin expressed a few other interesting perspectives on how organizations can use AI to create a hiring process that’s, in his words, “radically better.” Here’s a few that caught my attention.
Above all else, be client-centric.
With a bevy of new technology options, customizing solutions to each individual organization is becoming more important than ever.
“There will be no generic chatbot that does everything for everyone,” said Bersin.
Organizations should be able to choose where automation fits in their workflow — from the different stages of their hiring process to the different roles they hire. Not every organization is going to want to automate 90%+ of their hiring process, and not every organization is going to want to use the newest developed capabilities.
We as technology vendors need to be flexible— it’s how we’ll be able to get the most optimized solution for every individual client. That involves automating different tasks for different organizations, and integrating with existing technology alike.
“In many ways Paradox can be ‘the integration platform’ for candidates and recruiters, stitching together the messy systems behind the scenes,” said Bersin.
Technology like this is bringing real results.
“The ROI of a highly refined system like Paradox is massive.”
We’ve seen clients all over the world implement conversational AI and scale their recruiting to new heights. Take GM, who integrated Paradox alongside their Workday ATS to automate interview scheduling. With their conversational assistant, Ev-E, they’ve saved $2,000,000 in under one year and reduced their average time to schedule from five days to 29 minutes.
“Paradox has become essential to these companies’ growth, often paying for itself in less than a year,” said Bersin. And companies are able to redeploy their hiring staff to spend less time on the monotonous tasks and more time talking with candidates.
As AI capabilities continue to improve, candidate expectations are going to rise alongside them.
“Ambitious job seekers will not put up with a messy, confusing hiring process,” said Bersin.” “[With AI] a job candidate is handled efficiently and effectively, and the process becomes a brand-builder for the candidate. Not only is the process faster and more efficient, the quality of hire goes up.”
It’s crazy to think about how far we’ve come since the original ATS, and how much more we still have to do. It’s encouraging to see industry leaders like Josh Bersin share our excitement for the future of AI in recruiting.
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