5 Reasons to Implement Chatbots in Recruitment
By Gaurav Belani
(Featured Image Source: Freepik)
Recruitment is hard.
As an enterprise when you're on a hiring spree, your HR team has to perform multiple functions.
They're sourcing the right candidate for the job, engaging with them, shortlisting them, and scheduling interviews. It is a long and tiring process. And 76% of recruiters struggle to just find quality candidates.
As a result, a lot of businesses have turned to recruitment chatbots. They automate certain processes and accelerate the first round of filtering and screening candidates. They take care of scheduling interviews by asking a series of questions and reducing the burden on your HR team while doing so.
Chatbots have also gained traction because of their user-friendliness and affordable costs. While the overall chatbot pricing depends on your use-cases and business goals, it saves you considerable money in manually sourcing candidates and hiring them.
Naturally, the interest in recruitment chatbots has grown over the years because of the immense benefits they offer to your recruitment and candidates.
Let's take a look at these benefits in detail.
#1 Increase Candidate Engagement
Ironically, candidate experience often gets overlooked in the recruitment process. According to a survey on candidate experience, nearly 60% of candidates have had a poor experience while applying to a company.
These experiences range from not having a touchpoint to talk to, lack of clarity on the further steps, delays in replies, and so on. A candidate has a lot of questions while applying to a company. And these questions are more or less the same. Chatbots help with a lot of these bottlenecks.
Don't believe me? Take a look at the result of this study:
Your recruitment team may not be able to address every candidate. Your chatbots then become the first point of contact. They can explain all the basic questions that a candidate may have and offer them quick resolutions.
The way a candidate perceives an organization during the recruitment process makes all the difference. Recruitment chatbots help organizations make the method candidate-focused and the continuous availability helps the candidate develop a positive outlook toward the brand.
#2 Transparency in Hiring Process
A common concern that candidates often have with companies is that they don't quickly revert about the interview results and candidates are often left clueless about the outcome. At each stage, the candidate has no idea when to expect the next update.
And how are your prospective employees supposed to trust your company if you are not transparent with them now? Your communication process speaks a lot about your brand and how you treat your employees.
Chatbots can easily fix this problem as they can offer these answers and are available 24*7. Candidates can interact with the bot anytime, receive feedback from it, and send automated updates to the candidates.
The instant updates can also help candidates take the next appropriate step based on the status of the job application. It reduces the continuous back and forth communication
Also, if candidates are updated regularly regardless of the outcome, it makes them believe the company cares for their employees and even encourages them to apply again if they don't get accepted.
#3 Automated Application Proces
We cannot speak of chatbots and not mention automation.
Just like how chatbots are automating key tasks in every industry, they are automating a key task in the HR industry as well.
The application process is probably the most time-consuming and mundane as compared to other processes. Your recruitment team is endlessly calling prospects and pre-screening them and there's also a higher drop-off ratio in the initial step.
Chatbots can play an important role in sourcing the candidates by matching the jobs with the seeker's qualifications and serving them job openings. It allows them to apply for a job on the chat widget itself and forwards the candidate information to respective HR portals.
They can also screen the candidates by setting up the minimum qualification and work experience requirements. This way your chatbot will be able to filter out the applicant and forward only those that meet the requirements of the role. When your company is on a hiring spree, this saves ample time and allows your HR team to get more work done in a limited time.
#4 Speed up Scheduling Process
Once the bot screens the candidates, the chatbot proceeds with the next hiring step. The bot can also schedule the interviews for the HR team. It simply sends a message inviting a candidate to an interview and allows them to pick a time slot from their integrated calendar system.
The bot displays a drop-down calendar for the applicant to choose the date and slot. Once the applicant confirms, the chatbot sends an email notification as an invitation.
This significantly avoids the duplication and confusion that leads to double booking. It also makes it very simple for your team to allocate their schedules accordingly.
#5 Allows HR to Focus on Crucial Tasks
With all the tasks that the chatbot overtakes, your recruitment team is saved from a mundane workload and stress. A lot of businesses are hesitant to deploy an HR chatbot because they fear it might replace their recruitment team.
But as you already know, your recruitment team is overloaded with often simple tasks that can easily be automated. Your chatbot is not a 'Virtual Recruiter' but rather a 'Virtual Recruiter Assitant'.
They only aid your team so that they can focus on essential tasks like interviewing or background checks, etc. And they just provide them the time to carry on crucial job tasks that are non-replaceable.
Conclusion
Recruitments chatbots are here to stay. They make the recruiter's job more powerful instead of making them reductant. You are combining automation with human expertise to get the best possible employees for your company.
It's not enough to just build a chatbot. You also need to take the necessary steps to make the chatbot responsive and ensure that it fulfills the purpose of weighing down the burden of your recruitment team. So it's up to your way to leverage them for streamlining your recruitment process and enhance your candidate experience.
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