Role of technology in recruitment

Abstract

In this study, we look at how technology is changing recruitment practices and present the benefits as well as downsides of use of technology in recruitment systems, to gain more balanced understanding. From the 1980s to now, methods of recruiting people can be divided into three periodsAnalogue Age, The Early age of the Internet, and The Digital Age. In the analog age, the conventional processes for recruitment were followed, in which the channels of communication between employers and candidates were telephones, postal service, and print media. In the late 1990s with the proliferation of internet and email, the interface became faster due to lower turnaround times. It started an era of global accessibility to skill sourcing. As the internet and technology became commonplace, platforms such as LinkedIn and Naukri.com evolved as a new form of a marketplace to connect candidates and recruiters. With artificial intelligence and machine learning as the new face of technology, recruitment as an area is undergoing significant changes and additions. Some automation tools for recruitment have come into existence such as Beamery, Clinch, NowWeComply.com, JobScience, HireHive, and SimplyCast. These tools help organizations by automatically syncing candidates professional, social, SMS, survey, and email data, setting up email drip campaigns, syncing contacts from the organizations CRM system, storing an audit trail, online signing, scheduling interviews, tracking referrals, tracking anonymous leads from the organization’s website, marketing, and managing contacts.i Majority of the literature highlights the advantages of use of technology in recruitment; such as broader candidate pool from across locations, lower cost and faster processing, access flexibility, data collection and maintenance; however, there are trade-offs involved with participation, access equity, personhood, purpose of data collected, privacy, and verification. Thus, ubiquitous adoption of technology, thus, might not be the most effective way. Various factors should be considered like industry, gender mix, and generation mix.