Job Seekers Are Frustrated With Automated Recruiting

 

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Job Seekers Are Frustrated With
Automated Recruiting
Automation is putting off job applicants
By Aliah D. Wright
Aug 25, 2017
new report reveals that 82 percent of job seekers are frustrated with an overly automated recruiting experience.
That’s especially true for candidates who apply for jobs online and never hear back from potential employers about
the status of their applications.
Randstad US, one of the largest national staffing and HR service organizations based in Atlanta, released the report in
August. About 1,200 respondents from the U.S. were surveyed. While most candidates found value in technology, they said
they are frustrated when it supplants the human aspect of the recruiting process.
The report also found:
◾ 95 percent said technology should be used to assist the recruiting experience, not replace it.
◾ 87 percent said technology has made looking for a job more impersonal.
◾ 82 percent said the ideal interaction with a company is one where innovative technologies are used behind the
scenes and come second to personal, human interaction.
“The findings reinforce what we’ve believed for quite some time, that successful talent acquisition lies at the intersection of
technology and human touch,” said Randstad North America CEO Linda Galipeau, who is based in Atlanta. “If done correctly,
the right combination of personal interaction with the power of today’s intelligent machines can create an experience that is
inherently more human.”
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https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/candidates-soured-too… 9/17/2017Artificial intelligence (AI) programs may help

improve the candidate experience (www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hrtopics/talent-acquisition/pages/recruiting-trends-2017-technology-change.aspx), said

William Tincup, SHRM-SCP, an expert
on recruiting technology and president of recruitment media company RecruitingDaily.
For example, “recruiters are horrible at letting candidates know where they are in the recruiting process,” he said. “AI will
make it so that feedback is consistently given.”
Too much technology with too few recruiters has hurt the process, said Dave Marko, managing director, On-Demand
Analytics Solutions and Information Management for Acumen Solutions in Washington, D.C. Increasing automation without
increasing staff creates an imbalance “that forces people to be less personable.”
Every touch point that an organization has with candidates is significant, he said. “The goal is to increase candidates. But with
all the technology, there’s not enough [recruiters] to make that human connection.”
Recruiters need to be better at blending new technologies with a human touch, experts say. Traditional recruiting methods
can make a difference. (/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/high-tech-tools-high-touch-recruiting.aspx)
“I think certainly being highly responsive” helps, said Pete Lamson, CEO of JazzHR, a recruiting software company based in
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. “Respond back. It reflects back on the employer’s brand.”
[SHRM members-only toolkit: Recruiting Internally and Externally (www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/tools-

andsamples/toolkits/Pages/recruitinginternallyandexternally.aspx)]
Reputation Matters
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“Employers today and in the future will be judged by the experience they create for prospective new hires,” said Galipeau.
“Job candidates are empowered to provide instant feedback on employers, rating a company’s candidate experience just as
they would rate a movie. In a tightening labor market, companies cannot afford to lose potential talent due to a poor hiring
experience. And in a technology-driven world of talent, it’s not only about how a company markets itself but what others say
about the company that has a positive impact on employer branding.”
Jerome Ternynck, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based recruiting firm SmartRecruiters, called for recruiters to bring
back more one-one-one interaction with candidates. The emergence of the applicant tracking system (ATS) has “turned what
is essentially a social activity of meeting people into an automated activity,” he said. “Recruitment is social, and we have to
make it social again”—even if it’s just making sure recruiters add personal notes to their communications with candidates or
that a company has a portal so applicants can see and track the status of their applications. Better technology might facilitate
better relationships.
“You cannot provide a good candidate experience with a bad ATS,” he said. Legacy ATSs were designed 20 years ago to
turn paper applications into online web forms. “They were never designed for interaction. Start with a great candidate
experience and make candidates feel welcome.”
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