Conversational-AI driven software is quickly taking over the recruiting technology landscape. We have, at this moment, technology that can do almost every single tactical part of recruiting that most of us are still doing manually today. And that means merely “working harder” with old tech is no longer a competitive differentiator in the talent market.
In 2022, with the tech at your disposal, you should no longer be:
Manually juggling five calendars to set up an interview; screening less than 10% of the candidates that apply; manually entering notes to an antiquated ATS. And so on.
Within the next three years, recruiting technology platforms will do almost all of the manual tactical work that most recruiters are still doing today. The key competitive differentiator for talent acquisition functions will not be “how well you process candidates manually,” but “how well candidates feel about the experience they had going through your process.”
Here’s the part where I tell a quick little anecdote that seems unrelated to this topic, but ultimately turns out to be a perfect metaphor and learning lesson. Buckle up.
The other day I was supposed to get a new washing machine delivered to my house. I took time off of work. I made sure I was there in the window of time they gave me: “Hey, we’ll be there between 2 - 6 p.m.” Okay, great, four hours isn’t the most precise or convenient time frame, but that’s the world we live in. So I wait. Sure enough, 6 p.m. came and went, and no delivery person showed up at my door.
We all know the drill. I got on the phone with customer service, had a super inefficient chat with an automated messaging system, input my order, and went in circles. The frustration was building. Eventually I got connected with a real human. His name was Mateo. And even though it wasn’t his washing machine that never showed up, Mateo was somehow 100 times more frustrated than I was. I was immediately disarmed — it ended up being me that was trying to keep him calm. Mateo personally called the store with me on the line, and also followed up the next day (that never happens!). It was by far the best customer service experience of my life.
Now that is a white glove experience!
My guy Mateo made me feel important. He made me feel like my problem was his problem. He made me feel like he, personally, wanted my business today and in the future. To be honest, I actually tried to hire him! He was so awesome, I just wanted him on my team.
(Side note: I literally did try to hire him, but unfortunately he couldn’t accept because he lived outside of the country!)
What should the white glove experience look like?
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If we know technology will do most of the tactical work in recruiting, what can we do to still deliver a hands on, white glove experience? Here is what I believe:
1. You should have technology that actually works for the candidate and immediately allows them to feel connected to your brand and your jobs. That means using conversational recruiting AI to automate text conversations (and screening and interview scheduling) so the moment they want to engage, you have an avenue for them 24/7/365.
2. If the time-consuming stuff is automated, that will free up recruiters to use their superpower: making every single candidate feel desired. It is by far the most powerful emotion you can deliver as a recruiter. To make a candidate feel desired by your company, by your hiring manager, and by you as a recruiter, totally sets up the entire hiring process for success. But recruiters can only do it if they have the time (and the unfortunate truth is that right now many don’t).
3. Candidates should have the ability to self-service — that is, be more in control of their own hiring experience by setting up times to continue each step that is convenient for them, but also syncs with the busy schedules of the interviewing teams. The process should work like we would all want it to work — no back and forth via email or phone. Just easy and intuitive and instantly automated through interview scheduling software. This applies to rescheduling interviews or onboarding.
4. You should have an interview and personality assessment process that actually makes candidates feel like their time investment was worthwhile; that they learned something from the experience, got a bit better as a professional, and now have a greater understanding of their unique skillet and personality that they can apply to their role (hopefully with your company).
5. Because our candidate invested their time with us, we should follow up with them with personal communication that demonstrates our appreciation for that investment and gives them some real feedback to help them in the future. Again, this is only possible if recruiters actually have the time.
You see, when our recruiting technology does what it is supposed to do, that will allow us to focus on the parts of the process where we can deliver a white glove process to our candidates. You can’t do that if you’re spending 90% of your day on the tactical aspects of recruiting.
The future of the white glove experience in recruiting is actually two-fold: Conversational technology delivering simple, around the clock engagements with the candidate, and the recruiters — freed from the time sink of admin work — investing those saved hours into personalized, human-to-human connections with candidates.
That’s an experience Mateo would be proud of.
The final part in the series on rethinking employer branding is here.
If you missed the previous part, rethinking the candidate breakup is here.
Or start from the beginning and rethink the recruiter experience.
