When we talk about tech shaking up an industry, we often hear about radical futuristic innovations that are going to mean we travel to work on hoverboards while robots clean our house.
In fact, there is a lot of technology currently available that’s really changing how the recruitment industry operates – and compared with even five years ago, the difference is startling.
We’ve rounded up a few areas where tech is shaking up recruitment, and not a hoverboard in sight.
Social media is replacing the CV
CVs are still the norm, but they are no longer the only info an employer or headhunter has to hand. Now, we think nothing of checking social media to review candidates’ job history, personality and to get a feel for who you might be interviewing.
Despite this, it’s incredible the number of candidates who still don’t lock down their social media profiles, with pictures of them in Magaluf ‘06 dominating their profile.
Whether we like it or not, our social media profiles – both professional and personal – act as extensions of our CV, and you should expect them to be reviewed by future employers.
The world has been opened up to employers
Your office is in Reading, but you’ve found a great candidate in Geneva who could do the job remotely – once, that could have cost a fortune in setting up a base overseas or in flights back and to. Now, with dynamic communications tech, it’s easy to hire across the world and integrate employees into your remote team with unified communication and collaboration technology. Technology has changed the traditional parameters for hiring.
Interviews are virtual
Why draw out your interview process over four weeks waiting for diaries to align when Candidate A is in London next? With Skype and video conferencing you can filter out candidates early on without impacting on your interview timescales.
Search through a broader pool of candidates
LinkedIn and web-based job boards have brought candidates and employers closer together – you have nearly every available candidate at your fingertips. Also, with Google for Jobs now launched, it will be easier than ever to search, post and manage jobs online.
Attract a more diverse workforce
Social media has also meant it’s easier for employers to build their brands and attract a more diverse workforce. Looking to attract the 25 – 30 year old demographic? Then post on Instagram. Need to recruit for summer interns at your company? Try Snapchat. Previously, employers didn’t have access to these diverse channels to reach candidates in such a targeted way. Social media platforms have opened up the possibility for employers to engage across the entire workforce depending on the candidates and personalities they are looking to attract.
CV screening and filtering
Personality tests and CV screening tech is growing up, with artificial intelligence-enabled software now trawling CVs and cover letters to analyse language tone and use contact information to build a more comprehensive picture of prospective candidates. There are some downsides to this; where candidates’ addresses are being used to assess whether someone might be more likely to turn up to work or not based on wider demographic information, however, it’s inevitable that AI tech will further impact on the entire hiring process as we rely more on data to make decisions about individuals.
As you can see, many of these tech trends are in use currently, but we don’t realise how much they’ve impacted on our day to day recruitment activities. Are you making the most of your employer brand across social media and using it to attract a more diverse workforce? Are you using AI to supercharge your CV screening activities, and unified communications tech to speed up the interview process? If not, speak to us today about how to harness technology to accelerate your recruitment initiatives.
Read more about our views on recruiting and hiring over at our blog: https://yourprimerecruitment.com/blog/