Earlier I wrote about different ways in which HR and recruiting can use artificial intelligence to help bare some of the administrative burden that seems to take up so much of our time. In this article, I mentioned that artificial intelligence is defined as “an ideal ‘intelligent’ machine [that] is a flexible rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal.” It’s a branch of computer science that uses machine learning algorithms that mimic cognitive functions; making machines more human-like. I am a firm believer that A.I. technologies can allow HR as well as talent acquisition to be more strategic in our jobs.

A.I. is great for pattern matching and prediction, however, I still have many questions especially surrounding whether A.I. is ethical at using these growing number of tools to use as part of your diversity recruiting efforts. More importantly can AI effectively help recruiters identify candidates by race, gender, honesty, intelligence, performance, reliability, or culture fit? AI tools that exist will tell you yes. And since I know how challenging it is to find great talent regardless of their protected class, sexual orientation or experience level, I say yes, but with some hesitation. I really hope that AI can do all those things and more. As practitioners, we really have to proceed cautiously.

And that hesitation and caution are also that not all AI technologies are created equal. Some technology companies that tout their AI tools don’t even use machine learning but rely on a complex “Choose Your Own Adventure” type decision trees to help answer and anticipate candidate questions. These types of technologies aren’t true AI because it isn’t intuitive. It’s simply going through the motions no different than if I was using a social media scheduling tool or IFTTT to turn on my Nest once it reached a certain temperature in my apartment. Helpful but not intuitive or intelligent or flexible.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) in Recruiting & Hiring

The lowest hanging fruit for AI in our industry centers on talent acquisition and specifically the candidate experience. And this is why I focused my list-building and research efforts on talent acquisition because there is so much interest, curiosity, and confusion from those of us who are looking at trialing and testing this new breed of HR or talent acquisition technology at our company. In short, I had multiple reader requests to develop a list and so I am focusing on talent acquisition AI tools first. According to Berin’s 2017 Human Capital Trends Report, 38% of companies believe AI and robotics will be fully implemented in their company within 5 years.

We are sitting at a growing technological divergence in our industry that is more apparent than ever before with the ushering of technologies like AI which are part of the fourth transformation of technology. I discussed in more detail the four transformations and the peril and opportunity they present in our industry recently on Cornerstone OnDemand’s Rework Blog. You can read about that here. I mention this because still a number of HR and recruiting leaders still rely on staffing plans and dashboards that are managing and maintained mostly via spreadsheet. And yet here we are talking about the future of recruiting and talent acquisition. It’s it strange that we spend such a great deal of time in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and email? These are likely the least strategic activities we do in our roles in talent acquisition and HR.

And while I wait for an AI assistant to fully manage my email and develop beautiful powerpoint presentations and Excel formulas, I think that AI in terms of talent acquisition can fundamentally change how we effectively recruit and hire. The challenge is there are likely a hundred or more AI technologies for recruiting with these numbers growing by the day. This is the exact reason I made the decision to aggregate a list of the technologies that I am aware of so that as TA leaders you can do your full due diligence.

The AI technologies listed fall within one of seven of the maternity levels of artificial intelligence which according to Roy Wang at Constellation Research include: 1) Perception, 2) Notification, 3) Suggestion, 4) Automation, 5) Prediction, 6) Prevention and 7) Situational Awareness. However, I’ll go over these in later detail in additional articles published at a later date. For now, I want you to research the tools and use your own judgment to decide where they appear along the maternity scale.

List of Talent Acquisition Technologies with Artificial Intelligence

I’m listing the technologies in alphabetical order. If I have missed you from the list, please leave a comment as this list will evolve as I’m made aware of more AI talent acquisition technologies.

• Arya. Arya offers automated AI sourcing: it scans the web selecting candidates and arranges interviews. It predicts how likely a candidate is to move and tries to identify if a candidate is the right cultural fit for a company. It of course also engages with candidates. No real info on the company, team, or platform. 

• Avrio. AI platform allowing to better qualify talent reducing recruiter workload by 35%. Uses fit score to determine fit and will engage the candidate using a chatbot for ongoing messaging.

• Cyra. Cyra uses machine learning and natural language processing techniques to provide you with exactly the right candidates you’re looking for. Cyra will assist you to manage your hiring workflow by automating the monotonous tasks for you.

• EngageTalent. Source from a live stream of over 100 million passive candidates or enrich your own CRM and ATS candidates with predictive insights. ENGAGE continuously monitors your candidates and alerts you with predictive availability signals when a candidate is likely ready for a new opportunity.

• Entelo. Search passive candidates from multiple sources in a single platform. The proprietary algorithm lets you find candidates from underrepresented groups based on gender, ethnicity, and veteran status — right within our recruiting platform.

• GoHire. GoBe is a recruiting chat bot that can import your company’s jobs, pre-screen candidates, through customized pre-screening questions, and route candidates to job specific recruiters, your company career site, or your applicant tracking system.

• Hired. Hired simplifies your search by connecting the right people with the right companies at the right time. They use an algorithmic matching machine-learning algorithms take the guesswork out of finding the right fit, and make smarter matches over time.

• Ideal. Ideal uses artificial intelligence to screen resumes, uncover past applicants for new roles and initiate candidate outreach. All of this is done seamlessly within your existing ATS, no additional training required.

• Impress. Singapore-based company currently accepting beta invites. Bots for help with candidate screening and candidate engagement.

• Jane by Loka. With Jane you can get timely responses to employee questions faster than ever before. Your employees will love you. The HR department will thank you for the time you’ve saved them.

• Jobo the Job Bot. Jobo is available on Facebook Messenger and Telegram developed in Berlin.

• JobPal. JobPal chat bot has a conversation with job seekers improving your candidate experience and putting you to the cutting edge of recruiting.

• Karen by Innosphere. Karen is an outsourced development company in Canada, not a product company. For companies with 10,000+ employees. AI matching of candidates for recruiting. Private beta.

• Mya by FirstJob. Your team’s A.I. recruiter. Mya automates the process from resume to hire so you can cultivate and engage the best candidates.

• Olivia. Olivia is your recruiting assistant

• PocketRecruiter. Pocket Recruiter is an AI matching technology that drastically reduces the time it takes to screen, source and evaluate candidates, helping recruiters achieve a higher interview to placement ratio.

• Rai from Hiringsolved. Rai is an experimental AI interface. You interact with him/her like a human assistant. He/she can find candidates for your job. I can even help you create and send messages to them. Working with me is as simple as having a conversation.

• Pomato. AI for IT and technical recruiting. Pomato’s Resume-Analyzer and Job-Matching engine can deep dive and find the right candidates for you in minutes.

• Scout Technology.  This company has pivoted and raised money under a different name before settling on AI. Scout combines artificial intelligence and human intuition to fill open positions at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional recruiting tools.

• Symphony Talent. Is a full-service solution technology provider in talent acquisition. Their Experience Cloud (X-Cloud), an end-to-end omni-channel candidate lifecycle platform that acts as a recruiting command center all from a single platform (currently in beta). Media Cloud (M-Cloud), which guides smarter recruitment media buying through artificial intelligence.

• TalkPush. HR technology that offers many options for full cycle hiring including video interviewing, sourcing as well as chat bot functionality for Facebook which is the AI component.

• SwoopTalent. Proprietary correlation algorithms quickly synthesizes large amounts of data, allowing you to scale hiring efforts as your business grows. Access full candidate records from multiple data sources including ATS, CRM, social media profiles and spreadsheet data.

• Talla. Talla is an AI-driven assistant that handles your busywork allowing you to focus on your most important tasks. Talla can manage employee onboarding and polling, answering basic HR questions, and more beyond recruiting and hiring.

• Tara. Deploy developer talent, with the push of a button. Offers a network of pre-screened freelance technical talent.

• Textio. Textio is an advanced machine learning platform for writing better job postings.

• Wade and Wendy. Wendy is an AI in-house hiring assistant. She understands the identity of your company and intelligently vets and delivers candidates who complement your mission and culture. Wade is a career guide for candidates. Wade grows with you throughout your career and opens your eyes to new professional opportunities.

• Watson by IBM. Offering guided analytics and visualizations show you patterns and trends in compensation or attrition. Automated analytics identify factors must likely to contribute to high performance, satisfaction and more.

• Wirkin. Job board that has a bot which was first launched on Kik in 2016. Focused primarily on hospitality and retail industries.

• Xor. Chatbot recruiting assistant that communicates with candidates in What’s App, Slack, Messenger, Viber, and Telegram. European-based technology company.

Do you have an AI tool or technology that you have either developed or are using in your recruiting and hiring efforts? Leave a comment below and I’ll be in touch with you. As TA practitioners, how are you considering using or adopting artificial intelligence technologies? I look forward to speaking with you.