Right now, AI is playing an increasingly important role in recruitment.

LinkedIn and other job platforms have recently launched AI tools or agents to help recruiters find and screen candidates.

The So What

According to a BCG survey of chief human resources officers in 2024:

• If a company is experimenting with AI or GenAI, 70% of them are doing so within HR.
• Within HR, the top use case for AI or GenAI is talent acquisition.

That’s because AI is especially good at the marketing and administrative tasks that are a core part of the hiring process.

And the returns are already apparent. The vast majority of firms (92%) say they are already seeing the benefits, and more than 10% report productivity gains of +30%.

“The opportunity is real and exciting, especially when it comes to freeing up recruiters to spend more time on relationship building and widening talent pools,” says Julie Bedard, a managing director and partner at BCG who specializes in talent strategies.

“At the same time, there is an imperative on companies to ensure the candidate experience is positive. There is a business risk if candidates do not have a good experience.”

• More than half (52%) of candidates say they would decline an otherwise attractive offer if they have had some type of negative experience during the recruiting process, according to a BCG survey of 90,000 people across 160 countries.

The most popular use cases for AI within recruiting are:

• Content creation such as writing job descriptions, marketing emails, or creating assessments. Seventy percent of companies already using AI or GenAI in HR said they are doing this.
• Administrative tasks such as scheduling interviews. Seventy percent of companies already using AI or GenAI in HR said they are doing this.
• Candidate matching by pairing skills with the job specifications. More than half (54%) of companies who are using AI or GenAI within the HR function are in the process of implementing this—or have already done so.

One of the key advantages for companies is the ability to surface new and more diverse talent pools.

Recruiters traditionally source candidates from a select number of places to manage the volume of applicants. But AI allows the net to be cast much wider and helps the recruiter to screen far more candidates and find where skills match job requirements.

These changes are positive for the role of the recruiter, a job which has traditionally reported a high proportion of administrative time.

“Upskilling recruiters and improving their job satisfaction is a vital part of the transformation. As AI and GenAI save time spent on routine tasks, recruiters can proactively build relationships with potential candidates based on improved analytics that highlight a company’s future needs,” Bedard explains.

Now What

To seize on the huge promise of AI in recruitment, companies should proceed mindfully.

Develop a candidate-first mindset. Candidates deserve a positive recruitment experience that is rigorous and transparent. Candidates increasingly want a more seamless experience, with easy apply features and rapid responses. Common complaints about today’s recruiting process include applicants who never hear back, hear back instantaneously with a rejection, or face too many complicated assessments. Companies should harness the best technology to address these concerns.

Be human first. There needs to be absolute clarity over the role of AI, the level of human oversight, and where a person is critical to the process. This should be underpinned by corporate guidelines around the responsible use of AI, and transparency with the candidate about how and when AI is being deployed. This could include a rigorous onboarding process for any new tech tools and audits to check for bias in AI models.

Monitor the regulatory environment. The use of AI in hiring is part of a rapidly evolving and fragmented regulatory environment. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act grants candidates the right to access and delete personal information collected by recruiters while the EU AI Act classifies recruitment AI systems as “high-risk” and has substantial requirements around transparency and human oversight. Businesses must remain vigilant and proactive in ensuring compliance, and weigh the risks as regulations continue to evolve.

Invest in recruiters. Recruiters are likely one of the first teams in HR to face disruption, and adequate training and upskilling will be essential to a successful transformation. For example, identifying a strategy based on predictive analytics around future skills and attrition rates are likely to differ from current expectations of the role.