Many companies are exploring ways to speed up hiring while still finding prime candidates. One way they can satisfy both ambitions is by incorporating artificial intelligence into their hiring process. With a recent study showing how 91% of key decision-makers believe in the need for automation and AI in hiring processes for long-term business success, AI is here to stay. One way AI can boost a company's hiring strategy is by helping teams rank and reject candidates. Keep reading to learn how your company can integrate AI to speed up candidate ranking.
Why do hiring teams rank candidates?
Hiring teams often deal with hundreds of applications, making it difficult to sort out the right candidate for a role. This is where candidate ranking brings organization to the chaos. Some companies complete candidate ranking once throughout the whole process, while others rank candidates several times, especially when they receive many applications. While their approaches may vary, some common factors that companies consider when ranking individuals include:
- Experience
- Education
- Skills proficiency
- Interview performance
- Salary expectations
- Available start dates
The list of factors can be extensive, as companies may customize them to fit their needs or the requirements of a role. Completing this process without the assistance of technology or AI means that hiring teams must examine each candidate individually and rank them accordingly. While hiring teams may complete this process quickly for roles that attract a handful of applications, it becomes quite lengthy when dozens of candidates are in the hiring funnel.
How to use AI for candidate ranking
AI helps to speed up candidate ranking. Automating part of this process can accelerate candidate ranking, allowing your company's decision-makers to make hiring choices faster. Here's how you can integrate AI into your candidate ranking and rejection process:
Reflect on your candidate ranking factors
Before determining what you may use AI for, it's helpful to thoroughly examine your current candidate ranking methods. This can ensure that all factors used to rank candidates are relevant and contribute to hiring a quality candidate.
Decide what you can automate
The next step involves deciding which ranking factors don't need the subjective input of human beings. Matters such as experience, salary expectations, and start dates might not need human input as they are data-driven information. If the information provided is a hard fact, hiring teams can consider adding that ranking factor to the list of AI automation. Other factors, such as soft skills, may require a more subjective input. Hiring teams may need to factor these skills into candidate ranking manually, as some soft skills might be more valuable than others.
Research different AI tools
Having decided on factors to automate and those to rank in-house, you can start finding the right AI tool for you. Some AI tools might not rank candidates for you but can still provide you with lists of highly relevant candidates, such as the AI technology offered by CareerBuilder. This can make it easier to rank candidates later in the hiring process, even if it doesn't automate the entire procedure.
Some tools might only analyze and rank candidate resumes, which can help teams sort through the volume of resumes they receive for roles. Others might deliver a percentage match number, indicating how well the candidate's application aligns with the posted job description. All of these rank candidates, just in slightly different ways, making the research stage essential to finding a tool that does what you and your company want.
Integrate and test your new process
After selecting your tool, it's time to integrate it into your hiring practices. Many tools guide you through the integration process, making it simple to set up. After integration, it's important to evaluate the new tool. This helps the team better understand how it works and identify potential gaps in the new hiring process.
Readjust as needed
As with any process in a company, reevaluating and adjusting ensures a procedure remains accurate and relevant. Setting aside time each week, month, or quarter gives your team time to analyze the AI tool and make any necessary changes.
"Automating part of this process can accelerate candidate ranking, allowing your company's decision-makers to make hiring choices faster."
Benefits of using AI for candidate scoring
There are many benefits to using AI to help your team efficiently rank candidates. Here is a detailed look at the advantages your team can enjoy by using this technology:
- Enables objective ranking: Some factors are best evaluated objectively, which can be hard for human beings, as the human mind is often inherently subjective. Computers and AI are objective technologies that can augment the level of fairness and equality in the hiring process.
- Expedites hiring process: Automating timely processes, such as candidate ranking, can significantly speed up the hiring process. Rather than spending days or weeks ranking candidates individually, AI can rank candidates simultaneously in a matter of seconds.
- Enhances employee satisfaction: As teams spend fewer hours ranking candidates and more time completing other tasks, they might experience greater satisfaction in their work. This can improve efficiency as employees have the chance to take short breaks, which can improve productivity by 16%.
- Increases quality of hire: Having AI generate lists of high-quality candidates and objectively rank them can increase the quality of hire. Since this technology focuses impartially on a candidate's hard skills, experience, and qualifications, your hiring team can find applicants who best align with the role.
Tips for using AI for ranking candidates
As with any tool or process, there are many things to consider to get the most out of it. Ranking candidates with AI is no different. Here are tips to help you capitalize on your new process:
Incorporate subjective input
People are more than just numbers and hard facts, and other issues are also important in hiring. Factors such as soft skills, a person's personality, professional recommendations and references, and other subjective matters are important and hard for AI to analyze objectively.
Keep candidates engaged
Candidate engagement is fundamental, as some applicants may leave the hiring funnel if you fail to adequately interact with them. With only 28% of U.S. adults favoring AI reviewing job applications, the human element is essential. Just because AI handles some or most of your hiring doesn't mean that the process is entirely hands-off. Having regular check-ins and chances for interaction enhances the candidate's experience, improves engagement, and ultimately results in a quality hire.
Use open-ended questions
AI needs quality and quantity to rank candidates. It's hard for AI to accurately rank candidates with yes or no questions, making open-ended inquiries a valuable asset to the hiring process. Asking open-ended questions allows candidates to expand on their experience and qualifications, giving AI the data to analyze and rank accordingly. This also works well for other steps in the hiring process, such as pre-employment assessments, chatbots, and additional AI automation.
AI in hiring is here to stay, as many leaders recognize its value in speeding up the hiring process, saving companies time and money. Finding ways to effectively integrate this technology can help your hiring teams get the most out of their hiring process. Automating part of the candidates' ranking and rejecting process can help teams create a short list of top-tier candidates quickly. If you're interested in learning more about what AI has to offer and how CareerBuilder can assist you, check out our whitepaper that comprehensively outlines how we can help
More tips to help you better rank candidates:
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