So more and more articles are appearing about the great work that IBM’s Watson amongst others is doing in the field of recruitment and how soon recruiters will be obsolete.
Sorry Skynet, but we have had this prediction before, with the internet in general then Monster then linked in. If anything technology seems to provide a growth spurt to the numbers of recruiters, not a reduction.
Now don’t get me wrong – I am a technologist, and I believe technology plays an essential role in the talent management lifecycle. Technology helps the human element avoid mistakes, it securely collates and distributes data, it schedules accurately and provides analytical data at the end of the campaign. It enhances rather than degrades the humanist aspects of the process.
Technology, however, cannot replace the human input because we are dealing with humans. These days finding candidates and analysis of their C Vs into a long list probably only accounts for 10% of the role. The human process management, the cultural fit assessment ( more important than ever before to both candidates and companies these days) and the hand holding through the process are roles a machine cannot take on for the foreseeable future. I bet even Google don’t have an algorithm to measure “googliness” ( a 1/4 of their selection criteria).
Would you want to work for a company that had selected you by a computer algorithm?
The issue with any system is that it is generally designed by engineers.The issue with most recruitment systems seems to be they are designed by engineers and HR people and unfortunately, HR is a different discipline to Recruitment.
Don’t get me wrong- I applaud the amazing work these engineers and machines are doing, but don’t write off humanity yet