Finding Creative Employees in the Digitization Era

Do you know how to leverage the strengths of human and artificial intelligence when it comes to finding creative employees today?

Marketers use artificial intelligence and bots to gather data that will facilitate more targeted marketing. But did you know that this data, if leveraged correctly, also can help hire creatives more effectively and keep employees longer?

Hiring in the Digitization Era

Forty-six percent of U.S. employers find it difficult to fill open positions with qualified candidates.
- ManpowerGroup

As competition for qualified job candidates continues to grow, employers know that attracting and retaining top employees is mission-critical. To address this challenge, many organizations seek innovative and creative ways to find and source open positions—from advertising on Snapchat to using virtual reality to draw attention to hard-to-fill positions.

Sensing vast potential in the online talent acquisition industry, technology companies have launched new products in the marketplace that use artificial intelligence and automation to support recruiting efforts.

“Hiring is one of the most explosive spaces for innovation. Artificial intelligence is the most recent trend to appear in HR tech — and one of the most promising,” says TLNT.com.

Can Google Help?

This year alone, Google has launched the artificial intelligence-based job search engine Google for Jobs, as well as Google Hire, a new recruiting application. “Google jumping into HR tech legitimizes the ideas we’ve all been trying to champion,” blogs Scott Fowle, Chief Sales Officer at SmashFly Technologies.

With this proliferation of artificial intelligence and bots, you may be wondering to what extent these tools should be leveraged as part of your company’s employee attraction strategy. Harvard Business Review predicts that over the next few years "artificial intelligence may exponentially change the way we all gather information, make decisions, and connect with stakeholders.”

So in this new age of hiring, what are the advantages and disadvantages of machines versus people?

Innovations in Sourcing and Screening

Automated social media scraping tools

Seventy percent of employers use social media to screen candidates, according to a 2017 study from CareerBuilder. Automated social media scraping tools can speed up the screening process by extracting information from candidates’ social media sites and downloading the data into an Excel spreadsheet. Data gathered could be used to locate potential red flags or identify positive traits important to employers. Additionally, this information can give marketing directors and managers a better sense of a candidate’s social media skill set.

If a candidate’s LinkedIn profile shows a high level of engagement with their current or previous roles, they are likely to be engaged in their future positions as well.
– HireVue

Fama offers a solution that can quickly unearth whether a candidate’s social media presence indicates the person could pose a risk to a future employer. Using machine learning and natural language processing, Fama mines a candidate’s presence on Twitter and Instagram to look for potential signs that a candidate is violent, for example.

Online simulations

Interviewed provides AI software that helps candidates experience the “reality of a day on the job” through an online simulation. Using realistic scenarios and tasks, the software presents challenging situations to evaluate how a candidate navigates them. These simulations can help prospective candidates determine if the job is right for them, as well as helping employers determine if the applicant is right for the position. Insight gained from these simulations can predict whether the applicant possesses the traits needed to be a good match with the employer.

Automated Jobs

A common fear in this automation age is a loss of jobs for humans. Lynda Gratton, professor, London Business School isn't worried. "For us to be ­better than technology, we have to find our inner human,” she tells Fortune.

What About the Humans?

Humans are the relationship-builders. With the incredible speed and efficiency that machines bring to the table and the ongoing advancements in artificial intelligence, what can humans do that machines cannot?

The Pros of Human Intelligence

• Interpersonal Skills
  Only humans can truly get a “feel” for another person—everything from detecting what motivates and inspires them to decoding subtle, nonverbal messages as to what makes them uncomfortable. From active listening to empathy, soft skills are important to understanding what a person needs. When it comes to recruiting, the human touch can make the difference in a world that is becoming more automated.
  
  
• Judgment
  “Even when an algorithm beats human judgment, people tend to trust human judgment (especially their own judgment) better," reports HR Trend Institute.
  
  
• Building Relationships
  Human relationships aren’t built on speed and impersonal efficiency, they’re built on connection. People are hard-wired to desire connection with other people. During the interpersonal phases of the recruitment process in particular, humans are needed to establish trust and connection with both candidates and employers. Another important role recruiters play is ensuring a candidate will make a positive impression when meeting a client face-to-face. Although a candidate may look good on paper, recruiters know that in-person meetings can sometimes tell a different story.
  
  
• Creativity
  In situations requiring creative problem-solving, people beat computers hands down. Developing and sustaining a competitive talent acquisition strategy in today’s fast-changing environment demands innovative, creative solutions. Computers can only create what they’ve been told to create; ideas originate from the human mind. Additionally, as amazing as technology can be, it can’t evaluate a creative portfolio. For instance, artificial intelligence can’t detect the feeling an ad campaign inspires or assess whether a designer’s work is staid vs. edgy. A bot can spellcheck a document but it can’t judge whether the tone of the writing is in sync with the company’s brand.

“Humans are quite capable of operating in this confusing and noisy world," Deloitte Review says. Humans are more than capable of reading between the lines, tapping into weak signals, observing the unusual, and using their curiosity, understanding, and intuition to balance conflicting priorities. Humans are able to determine what someone actually meant.

The Cons of Human Intelligence

Along with the strengths humans bring to the table, we have natural limitations.

• Slower Data Processing and Response Times
  Humans can neither process data as fast nor work around the clock like machines can. In the fast-paced digitization era, people must use their limited bandwidth wisely in order to stay competitive.
  
  
• Prone to bias
  The human brain makes people naturally susceptible to cognitive biases. In fact, humans are wired to automatically sort people into categories and instantly apply stereotypes. The Wall Street Journal reports that according to research, people treat minorities differently “within milliseconds of seeing them.” Whether conscious or unconscious, this bias can interfere with recruiting, leading to a potentially less diverse workforce.

Where Do We Go From Here?

By leveraging a combination of humans and bots, we can maximize hiring productivity in this digital world.

Ideal Roles for AI and Bots

Automated computer programs work well for tasks that are "rule-based" and don't require creativity or interpersonal skills.

Bots will excel at:

• Building talent networks and pipelines
• Developing multichannel sourcing
• Screening for roles based solely on resumes
• Processing resumes
• Updating contacts
• Running background checks
• Checking references
• Conducting standard initial screenings

Artificial intelligence "will allow us to simplify multi-faced processes by replacing the manual process of sorting and identifying complex data, key insights, and actionable plans," according to Rebecka Jallad from Divisia in a Forbes CommunityVoice post.

Ideal roles for humans

“Human Recruiters will always be required for the most important interpersonal phases of the recruitment process," says Daxtra, a recruitment software company.

These crucial interactions include:

• Conducting one-on-one interviews
• Meeting with clients and candidates to get a better read on whether they’d be a good fit for one another
• Persuading candidates and Hiring Managers that they are a match

Additionally, humans will continue to be the creative, reflective masterminds that conceive of new and better ways to connect employers with the most qualified candidates.

AI and Humans Working Together

“Humans and AI, working together, can achieve better outcomes than either alone.” – Deloitte Review

The rise in HR technology delivers a win-win for Hiring Managers, Recruiters, and clients. When marketers work with their HR/recruiting team on leveraging artificial intelligence together, Recruiters can better serve the needs of marketers.

Artificial intelligence and automation liberate Recruiters from time-consuming routine tasks. As a result, Recruiters can focus on the areas where they add the highest value: building relationships with candidates and the Hiring Manager. Recruiters sometimes feel they become too bogged down with mundane duties to spend sufficient time with Hiring Managers in particular.

In conclusion: Strategic use of artificial intelligence, combined with the personal touch of human Recruiters can help companies fill open positions faster and with more qualified candidates. The value of this competitive edge cannot be overestimated in today’s landscape; now, more than ever before, organizations must be fully equipped with top talent and cannot afford delays and vacancies.

Artisan gets that.

Artisan Talent is a people-first company. We see the value in artificial intelligence to free up time and resources to do what we do best and value most—build relationships with people, talent or clients.
– Bejan Douraghy, CEO and Founder

In a world transformed by technology and mobile lifestyles, a thoughtful combination of “human touch” along with technology makes a difference in the recruitment experience. Artisan is a knowledgeable partner that can help you navigate the changing HR/Recruiting landscape.

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