We as human beings are often skeptical or even afraid of the things that we don’t know. We are drawn to things that we already recognize. Psychologists call this the mere-exposure effect. We fear change because we don’t know if it is good or bad — simply, it’s new and unknown. So, it is only natural that we are feeling some skepticism about what automation means for us both personally and professionally.
Here, we will go into four common fears about recruitment automation that many talent leaders face in today’s complicated job market.
Fear #1: Automation is Impersonal
The first fear that many talent leaders face is that automation is much less personal. We are humans and as such, we desire one-to-one connections with other human beings. While automation may be less human-centric, it is still more candidate-focused than the slow, subjective, and bureaucratic processes that many recruiting systems embody.
The danger, to some recruiters, is that if they use an automated process it will create a poor candidate experience. Unfortunately, there are not many recruitment automation platforms on the market today that focus on the candidate experience, but that doesn’t mean there are none. The ideal platform will use automation for the more repetitive tasks that recruiters handle every single day. This way, recruiters have more time and energy to devote to the qualified candidates.
Fear #2: Automation Will Take Away My Job
The second fear that many recruiters face is the fear of being replaced. Mass media constantly tell us that continually advancing technology will one day replace all of us. But the simple truth is that AI in recruitment is not capable of mimicking human connections. No matter how smart it may get, AI will not be able to replace human workers entirely. Actually, recruiting automation works best when it is used to boost a recruiter’s abilities rather than taking over their work. Think about it like a pair of glasses. Sure, you could probably do all of the work without them, but they make your job so much easier.
This is why we don’t say that Qualifi replaces your recruiters, but rather that it provides them with automation tools they can use to better achieve their goals and avoid burnout.
Reid Health used Qualifi like an additional recruiter — working 24/7 so they didn't have to.
Fear #3: Candidates Prefer One-On-One Communication
The third common fear is that automation removes the one-to-one communication that candidates want in the recruitment process. While candidates — like all people — do prefer a more human touch, they also prefer quick, clear, and effective communication above all else.
In today’s extremely competitive job market, reducing your time-to-hire is overall more beneficial than one-to-one communication with every single candidate. One-to-one communication can add days to your hiring process. Forbes states that the longer you make your candidates wait to make it through your hiring process, the more likely they are to accept an offer somewhere else.
Fear #4: Recruiter Intuition Is Better Than An Assessment
The final fear that many talent acquisition professionals face when it comes to automated recruitment is that it won’t be as reliable as their intuition. We are all familiar with the gut feeling when something is or isn’t a good idea and more than 25% of employers rely on this feeling when hiring new employees.
One common definition of “intuition” is “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.” According to this definition, intuition is based on your unconscious mind — which means that it is filtered through the unconscious biases that we all have as humans. This can result in unconscious bias in hiring and hurt your company’s desire to assess all candidates solely based on their qualifications and skills. In fact, relying on intuition often results in 30% of candidates being rejected.
If you want to mitigate the unconscious biases that are preventing your business from being its best, you need a way to ensure that all of your candidates are starting from a level playing field. This is where Qualifi can help. Qualifi offers you an easy-to-use on-demand phone interview platform that gives your recruiters all the tools and information they need to make the best hiring decisions quickly and efficiently.
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