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Your recruiter is a robot: didn't you know it (yet)?
In a world where digital and innovation are at the heart of corporate strategies, more companies are harnessing AI and automation's immense potential to streamline their recruitment processes to gain time, efficiency, and impartiality.
That's why people skills, often referred to as “soft skills”, are increasingly seen as the key to lasting career success.
In this article, we'll look at the importance of soft skills in recruitment, as well as the power and potential dangers of AI recruitment. Finally, we'll answer the crucial question: Can AI correctly assess candidates' soft skills in the hiring process?
When a recruiter looks at your application, he's looking to determine whether you're suited to the job you're applying for. Of course, they'll be looking at your skills, but they'll also want to know a little more about your personality.
Today, your skills, those that set you apart from all other candidates, are highly valued by recruiters. Yet they are often overlooked on CVs by students and job seekers alike. That's where soft skills come in.
These are all behavioral skills that reflect a part of your personality or other abilities you've developed.
According to an OpinionWay survey from 2021, soft skills are a top priority for 68% of employers.
Here are 3 reasons why soft skills have become essential today.
1. They show that you're the ideal candidate
The soft skills you mention provide recruiters with valuable information. Not all jobs require the same soft skills. For example, some jobs require more autonomy, while others require a high level of collaboration.
2. They give more insight into your personality
Rather than focusing solely on technical skills during job interviews, recruiters could give equal or even greater importance to soft skills such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork, and time management.
These skills can tell a lot about how a candidate will fit into the company culture, but also how he or she will interact with colleagues.
3. They can set you apart from other candidates
Many candidates choose to omit behavioral skills from their CVs. Yet they are a competitive advantage. In particular, they offer an additional perspective on your skills and adaptability within a company. By highlighting them, you increase your chances of convincing the recruiter of your ability to integrate harmoniously into the company's professional environment - but that's not all! These “adaptive” skills will guarantee your performance and strengthen your employability.
If we analyze the study conducted by LinkedIn in 2023, here are the top 5 most in-demand soft skills:
You've heard me right: soft skills are no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have for any CV.
But:
Artificial intelligence and Big Data are revolutionizing the way companies identify and hire talent while simplifying the recruitment process for HR professionals.
SHRM reports show that at least 79% of companies are already using some form of AI or automation in their recruitment and hiring processes. Thanks to these technologies, algorithms can refine search criteria more precisely, making it easier to match sought-after skills with potential candidates. Some offer matching based on criteria defined by the company for a given position, and CVs are analyzed against these criteria.
What's more, thanks to machine learning, some programs can improve their performance in solving tasks without having been explicitly programmed to do so.
Recruiters who use this type of new technology will therefore be able to be more efficient and save more time, allowing them to refocus on other tasks inherent to their profession, such as interviewing candidates or developing talent.
While AIs used in recruitment are built to help and relieve the recruiter in his or her job, they can't replace 100% of a recruiter's position. In our view, they have a crucial role to play, above all in:
1. Facilitate sourcing
Identifying and shortlisting candidates is often a time-consuming task for recruiters, who can sometimes run out of time. To remedy this and gain efficiency, they can use artificial intelligence to set up an “autonomous sourcing” process.
For example, some companies use artificial intelligence to analyze large quantities of data from a variety of sources, to identify the profiles best suited to companies' specific needs. It helps recruiters to find and engage talent proactively, drawing on relevant data and facilitating personalized interactions with candidates.
2. Identify the right talent for the job/company
Recruiters sometimes find it difficult, if not impossible, to manually sort through the large number of CVs they receive. In such situations, automation can be an effective solution!
A study by the Harvard Business Review shows that a recruiter who relies on an algorithm rather than his or her instinct to recruit increases the chances of choosing the right candidate by 25%.
Here are a few solutions available in this field:
3. Managing internal mobility
Human resources departments often possess information on employees' skills, strengths, and aspirations. But they don't always know how to put this information to good use, especially when it comes to identifying employees who are keen to move within the company, and who would make good internal candidates with the right skills or the necessary potential.
In this context, artificial intelligence can come to the aid of recruiters. Software solutions, based on matching systems, use algorithms to match profiles with specific skills and a desire to move internally, with vacancies and the skills required for them.
Some companies already offer an algorithm that enables companies to distribute internally available job vacancies in an automated and targeted way to suitable employees, so that they can apply or recommend contacts from their network.
It's important to note that while these AI-based tools offer us some pretty incredible possibilities for automating time-consuming tasks, they are far from perfect.
There are many limitations and risks that companies need to guard against, including:
While artificial intelligence excels at analyzing objective data, assessing human skills such as creativity, emotional intelligence or leadership remains a challenge.
Soft skills often require in-depth human assessment to be fully understood. So, a combination of artificial intelligence and human judgment may prove to be the best approach for an effective recruitment process.
Can AI detect your soft skills?
Just above, we've given a general description of AI and recruitment risks, but now let's go into more detail about soft skills.
So, assessing soft skills with AI is a headache. Communication, collaboration, leadership - it's all subjective, and difficult to quantify. AI struggles to understand these complex human nuances and interactions. Think of body language, tone of voice, and culture - subtleties that escape it.
But wait, AI isn't useless after all! It can analyze data and spot patterns that humans would miss.
So, what's the solution?
If AI alone isn't enough, combined with human intelligence, it can become a valuable tool.
Take Soft Skill Scan, for example - this tool can analyze objective data and identify subtle behavioral patterns, enabling a precise profile of a person's soft skills to be drawn up.
While AI provides real support to recruiters in the exercise of their profession, it remains a tool and does not replace the recruiter's job in itself.
A study by Harvard Business School (2021), conducted in the USA, UK, and Germany among 8,000 jobseekers and nearly 3,000 managers, calls into question the use of automatic filters that are too strict, leading to the mass rejection of “atypical” CVs. In the USA, UK, and Germany, 27 million CVs have been rejected by software due to filters that automatically exclude CVs with too many part-time jobs, a period of long-term unemployment, or requiring specific accommodations.
Another example is Amazon, which stopped using predictive software for recruitment when it found that it discriminated against women. The reason was that the keywords analyzed were more frequently used by men, who were also more likely to send their CVs to the company.
In conclusion, although AI represents a useful tool in the recruitment process, it's crucial to recognize its limitations and not to regard it as a complete substitute for human judgment.
Is recruitment becoming robotized? Yes, but soft skills remain the compass for recruiters. Communication, collaboration, emotional intelligence... AI, with its big digital brains, excels at analyzing data, but it has trouble pinpointing these very human nuances.
So don't panic! AI is not your sworn enemy. Think of it more as your co-pilot: it guides you through mountains of data, while you keep your eye on the candidates, understanding their deepest motivations.
And to help you decipher non-verbal language, tools like Soft Skill Scan are your allies.
In short, AI and people, hand in hand, for smarter, more efficient recruitment!
Combler le manque de connaissance en soft skills de vos étudiants 2 fois plus rapidement.
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