One of the biggest fears we have when it comes to hiring automation is we tend to think it dehumanizes the experience for candidates. All of this automation is just going to make them feel like a number.
You aren’t wrong. Mostly.
Bad automation does more harm than good. When a candidate gets an email from you, and the first thing they see is “Hi, Name” in what is clearly a different font than the rest of the body of the email, that feels spammy, not personal.
But despite the clear downside, the reality is that the only way we can scale personalization is through the use of automation. In our modern recruiting tech stack, that means conversational AI. Without this level of technology within your process, your candidates will feel like just another number.
Scaling personalization software in high-volume hiring.
First and foremost, we need to do things where the candidate feels like it’s exclusively inclusive. That sounds like a paradox, right? You can be exclusive and inclusive!
Every candidate wants to feel like the job you have is specifically for them, and you specifically want just them for that job. That’s exclusive! But we also want to have a process and culture that is very inclusive, so we are welcoming everyone to apply. I think in TA, we get it wrong if we only say we want to be inclusive. Because that is one of the problems, we have to make candidates feel this is a personal, exclusive opportunity for them.
We can add exclusive and inclusive pieces to the process, like being multilingual. Nothing makes you feel less included than when you can’t apply in your own language. But having someone communicate with you in your own language also feels exclusive!
Conversational AI in recruiting software allows us to ask questions of all candidates that gives us a unique perspective of each candidate individually, and we can target content specifically to them that feels personal and allows us to be inclusive all at the same time. It’s the best of both worlds — it’s exclusively inclusive!
Prior to this type of technology, your personalization was mainly throwing people into large buckets. Oh, you applied to a customer service role, so we’ll target customer service content to you. And that might have worked for many in that target group. But it was most likely one language and very narrow in what was being delivered. Now you could have hundreds or thousands of pieces of content that are individually being targeted to each candidate specifically. That is candidate personalization at a level most have never experienced, and it feels very “white glove” to an individual who is normally treated like a number.
The value of video in personalization.
Over the past few years the use of video in our hourly hiring process has been a game changer for so many organizations. Traditionally, organizations would do a phone screen and then have a candidate come in to interview. It worked really okay for companies but mostly sucked for candidates. There’s a lot of wasted time in the logistics of coming in for an interview.
Today, organizations can quickly and easily ask a candidate to jump on a video call and do both a screen and an interview in one shot if they would like. This is easier for a candidate, and most hiring managers prefer this as well. It really gives both sides complete flexibility to complete this transaction and make a decision about the next steps. This makes every job more accessible to every candidate.
“But, wait, Tim! We have them come in to make sure they have reliable transportation!”
Do you really?
How does having a ride to an interview for a job they don’t have yet, show you they can reliably show up? You don’t really know that until they show up for that first shift, and the shift after, etc. There was a great story a few years ago about a man in Detroit who walked to work, one hour each way, for 18 years and never missed a single day. That’s a rare level of work ethic and consistency — and you wouldn’t have hired because he didn’t have “reliable” transportation?
Everyone wants to be wanted. As employers, we show candidates this through a combination of personalization and making them feel like our work environment is a place where they’ll be welcomed.
When you are hiring at scale that can be almost impossible to accomplish if you don’t have the right tech stack to support your desired goals.
The next part in the series on the new way to automate with class is here.
If you missed the previous part, the new way to source talent at a high volume is here.
