How to Use AI in Recruitment — Examining the Pros and Pitfalls

The hiring process used to a one-on-one process — a company and a prospective employee finding out if they were the right match.

But now each side has both a friend and a foe entering the relationship: artificial intelligence acting as a hunter, supporter, adversary — and even judge.

We are moving away from the days of a sincere cover letter, a CV hand-crafted for the role, and a recruiter trying to decipher 50 separate applications to find the right person to fill a role.

Dozens of tools now exist on both sides of the fence: for recruiters to comb through applicants or for applicants to employ AI to find the right job and send the perfect application.

We thought using LinkedIn to hunt and apply for jobs was the revolution, but that process is beginning to look positively quaint.

Now, AI cover letter tools can write a candidate’s first approach, and ChatGPT and similar chatbots can help candidates write their best CVs with the best prompts, tailored to individual job descriptions.

If you pass the shortlist, you can then use ChatGPT to prepare for a job interview.

Techopedia explores the recruitment process from both sides, and consider the pros and cons of using AI to find the best match from both sides.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Before AI… Job Seeking Used to be a Full-Time Occupation
2. Artificial Intelligence - A Recruiter's New Best Friend
3. AI's Role in the HR Onboarding Process and Employee Management
4. Future AI Trends: How Much AI Recruitment is Too Much?
5. The Bottom Line

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Before AI… Job Seeking Used to be a Full-Time Occupation
2. Artificial Intelligence - A Recruiter's New Best Friend
3. AI's Role in the HR Onboarding Process and Employee Management
Show Full Guide
4. Future AI Trends: How Much AI Recruitment is Too Much?
5. The Bottom Line

Before AI… Job Seeking Used to be a Full-Time Occupation

While job hunting is still a time-consuming and stressful endeavour for job seekers, the growing number of AI-integrated tools is undoubtedly helping individuals throughout the process.

From the outset, candidates can harness the power of AI platforms not just to screen their resumes for grammatical errors but now also to rewrite and optimise them specifically for their needs. Platforms like can even analyze a specific job advert and then tailor a CV and cover letter to match the unique job criteria exactly.

Machine learning (ML) algorithms can also upload the CV and cover letter to platforms such as LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor, instinctively matching employment vacancies based on their resume and skill set.

Aidan Cramer, CEO of AIApply, told Techopedia:

“In today’s job market, job seekers are doing everything they can to ensure their applications stand out.

 

“Tools like ours optimize their resumes to pass through applicant tracking systems (ATS) by including relevant keywords and helps them stand out to employers by showcasing why their skills are relevant to the role.”

If ChatGPT can guide an interviewer through the interview process, specialized AI chatbot platforms take it a step further, providing career advice, tips, and interview recommendations.

Interviews by AI, built off the back of ChatGPT by researchers Jake Rosenthal and Chloe Pappas, has been used by more than 35,000 interviewees and aims to help people perfect their responses to specific questions, build their confidence before a telephone or face-to-face interview, and offers scope for full-length interviews with ad-hoc AI-generated follow-up questions.

The creators told Techopedia:

“This is definitely where the industry and similar platforms are heading, especially with the release of new AI models that excel in multi-modality with advanced audio-to-audio capabilities.”

Artificial Intelligence – A Recruiter’s New Best Friend

But recruitment is a two-way blind date.

Recruiters and talent acquisition specialists can utilise machine learning algorithms that fast-track the CV screening process from the job boards, while their customer relationship management (CRM) databases can shortlist the best possible candidates with just a few clicks of a mouse.

Likewise, HR departments are automating repetitive tasks and better manage the typically time-consuming candidate onboarding process.

Even before that point, admin-heavy aspects including creating and writing job adverts, candidate sourcing, pre-screening, and interview management and becoming automated.

Recruiters are also turning to AI assistants like ChatGPT which — with minimal input — can hastily draft role-specific job specs.

Equally, AI has significantly enhanced the efficiency of identifying suitable candidates on job boards via data-driven skill-set searches.

Sandeep Mangat, a Senior Project Resource Manager at SmartCo Consulting, told Techopedia:

“Innovative CRMs with AI-integrated tools have optimised our ability for CV screening, sourcing candidate referrals, and expediting administrative tasks such as email and meeting scheduling.

“Primarily, with the help of ML algorithms, resource managers can now screen thousands of resumes based on a unique job description and immediately collate a list of the best consultants to approach.”

AI’s role in the recruitment process doesn’t end there. Once candidates have been identified, generative AI can send customised emails and text, verbal, or video pre-screening questions to refine their talent pool further.

After introducing candidates to a client, talent sourcing specialists can continually focus in on applicants throughout the interview process. These include tailored AI-driven interview questions, preparation materials, post-interview follow-up questionnaires… and, for the unfortunate ones, rejection letters.

AI’s Role in the HR Onboarding Process and Employee Management

Even after a job offer is made, AI-powered tools can facilitate a number of tasks that the Human Resources department is typically charged with.

Again, GenAI can tailor next-stage communications with the candidate, sending out personalized job offers as well as contracts, further enhancing their onboarding experience. Once a new employee starts, AI-infused human resources platforms such as Lano and Eightfold also manage many aspects of the HR process.

AI can then assist in creating employment records, payroll, and future performance assessments, along with real-time insights that can assess potential training requirements and performance-related bonuses.

Finally, state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) algorithms are now used to instantly review HR documentation and employment contracts to help ensure they meet regulatory compliance.

Future AI Trends: How Much AI Recruitment is Too Much?

The scope of AI’s ever-increasing presence in the recruitment lifecycle will inevitably continue to grow. But it may be a double-edged sword.

AI’s ability to mitigate any unconscious human bias in the recruitment process has to be a good thing — and yet AI is not immune from bringing in its own biases, or even simply reflecting society’s own biases.

You might hope that evaluating individual candidates based solely on their technical skill sets and qualifications will ultimately lead to selecting the best candidate for the job.

Yet, the overuse of artificial intelligence might well negate the quintessential human elements at the recruitment industry’s heart and purpose.

After all, people like to feel valued, so replacing so many steps traditionally conducted with direct human interaction can leave potential employees feeling like robots themselves.

Employees also need to be able to enjoy the time spent at work, and there’s a risk that even the best-qualified candidates may be put off by the lack of human interaction during the interview process.

AI also has its limitations in assessing other human-driven factors, and perhaps it can help asses how an applicant might best fit into an existing office dynamic. But can it compete with real people interacting in person?

These are factors traditionally discerned during face-to-face in-person interviews, and critics would argue AI just cannot compete there.

The Bottom Line

Like so many other industry sectors, recruitment ultimately benefits from AI-driven time-saving attributes. AI’s continuous learning, for example, can help reduce the time-to-hire of future job vacancies.

For job seekers, AI offers a wealth of benefits too. Its efficiency and the tools it provides can accelerate the job hunting process, making it easier to find suitable opportunities, faster.

Yet, finding the balance could make or break either party’s interest in one another. A candidate’s over-reliance on AI won’t completely cover an inability to do the job.

Likewise, a company that adopts a purely automated hiring process may deter a perfect employee from wanting to join — or hire a “perfect on paper” applicant and miss out on the truly best candidate.

No one said finding the right relationship is easy… Especially a working relationship.