Recruitment automation trends in Australia are changing. And the prevalence of automation is helping organisations improve their recruitment processes and outcomes: a particularly powerful opportunity in an era where talent shortages continue in key job sectors.
Did you know it takes an average of 23.3 days to successfully recruit and hire someone in Australia?
Now that number might seem high. However, you can see why when you break down the various stages of recruitment: sourcing candidates, screening resumes, conducting interviews, shortlisting, and negotiating offers. It’s not a simple process.
As Australian employers of all sizes and industries look for ways to fast-track their recruitment processes, they are progressively relying on various automations. Once implemented, the recruitment automation trends we’ve analysed can:
- Reduce the time to hire
- Speed up the new hire’s time to productivity
- Save the hiring manager time
- Offer a better candidate experience
- Help the organisation to scale its workforce quickly and efficiently
- Reduce the cost of hiring
- Provide data for better future hiring decision-making.
So, what kinds of automations are organisations seeking to adopt in 2023? We’re here to answer this question (and a few more!) by walking you through 5 of the latest recruitment automation trends.
1. Recruiters: Streamlining Candidate Screening
The process of analysing resumes and deciding which candidates to interview can be gruelling. In fact, screening a single candidate can take as long as 23 hours.
As recruiters look to identify the best talent in less time and focus more on engaging with target candidates instead, they’ll rely on automation.
More specifically, they’ll automate resume screening by doing something like the following:
- An applicant fills out the job application form
- An AI-enabled chatbot reviews the candidate’s profile, keeping specific skills in mind relevant to the open position, as they look over it
- If the candidate’s application passes the predetermined criteria, the chatbot messages a specific channel in your business communications platform, where recruiters can view the candidate and access the link to their application.
If the candidate, on the other hand, doesn’t meet the criteria, the chatbot can automatically reject them in your recruiting app. More on chatbots below.
2. Instantly Share Job Postings with Employees
Your team can often direct your hiring managers to the best job candidates—as research proves. The problem is, they don’t always know which positions your company is looking to fill.
You can inform them in real-time and in a way that’s visible by using the following recruitment process automation:
- Once a job is posted in your company application tracking system (ATS) a chatbot posts the job in a specific channel within your business communications platform (for example, email, IM, WhatsApp)
- From that channel, your employees can review the postings and then refer a potential candidate to a specific job opening.
According to a LinkedIn survey on talent trends, automation is the top trend influencing how people are hired, according to 35% of talent professionals and recruiting managers.
3. Job Advertising
Of all the recruitment automation trends we’ve reviewed; this one is particularly exciting.
Programmatic job advertising is one of the most significant ways to leverage automation in recruitment. This can be done by purchasing digital advertising software to automate the placement of your ads and target the best applicants throughout the internet while saving money on ads with a low (or no) return on investment.
This is made feasible by automated advertising budget management. This process is an evolving tool in the HR leader’s hiring kit, enabling them to cut the cost-per-applicant by more than 30%.
Recruiters are increasingly deploying advertising automation systems to provide branded ads that are more enticing than the typical job advertisement. Instead, these hiring ads include content showcasing employee experiences, company culture, employer brand values and company ethos.
4. Automated Sourcing
It’s estimated that recruiters spend over a third of their workweek (about 13 hours) sourcing applicants for a single role as they know the costs associated with poor hiring decisions. According to Forbes, the average cost of a bad hire is roughly 1.2 to 1.4 times the role’s base salary. It’s no wonder that automated sourcing is one of the leading recruitment automation trends of 2023.
Recruitment automation tools can expertly automate applicant sourcing from various supply channels, relieving recruiters of having to manually (and onerously) engage with each candidate. Think about accessing passive candidates which, according to a LinkedIn poll, make up 85% of the global workforce. By having the right automation tools and digital touchpoints in place, you can leverage recruitment automation to help tap into these candidates.
Automating social media activity can also enhance your recruitment sourcing outcomes. By automating your social media postings specific to your hiring strategy, as well as implementing recruitment and employer brand campaigns, the potential to reach quality candidates via social is very high.
According to this survey, 98% of recruiters use LinkedIn to post positions and find prospects. These recruiters are also going to use other social platforms for the same purpose, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
5. Pre-Employment Assessments
Most of the leading pre-employment assessment tools can easily interface with your company’s applicant tracking system (ATS). They enable recruiters to combine multiple candidate tests into a single online experience. This gives them a comprehensive view of a potential hire and houses up-to-date information on each applicant.
These tests cover a host of assessment points. They can:
- Examine the candidate’s technical skills and capability
- Assess their cognitive capacity
- Determine the personality qualities of an individual
- Help to understand the situational behaviour of a candidate based on examples.
And according to a Hubspot survey, 61% of talent acquisition professionals believe automation in recruitment, including pre-employment assessment tools, can help minimize unconscious bias.
Pre-employment assessment tools can also include functions such as the following:
- Resume parsers
- Text analysis from a resume
- Language proficiency tests
- Cultural fit assessment
- Skills tests (such as business skills, aptitude skills)
- Interview scheduling
- Video interviewing
- Reference checking
- Leadership potential
- Talent sourcing
- Onboarding guide
A huge benefit of these tools is that they can help hiring managers to better establish diverse teams and enhance several hiring functions that support workforce planning.
BONUS!!
6. Automated Candidate Engagement
Candidate engagement is a crucial stage in the hiring process. When you factor in the nurture of your talent pipeline, your chances of landing top talent increase considerably.
Employers can effectively use AI-powered technologies to increase candidate engagement.
According to a CareerBuilder poll, 67% of applicants develop a favourable view of the hiring company if they receive regular updates throughout the hiring process. A great automation adjunct to the process available to hiring managers is AI-powered technologies such as chatbots.
Chatbots add significant value to candidate engagement during the hiring process with functions such as:
- Providing prompt responses to questions or inquiries
- Analysing responses and asking probing questions
- It can be adjusted to reflect the company’s brand and voice
- Continually assisting throughout the application process
- During the interview process, removing personal biases or social favouritisms
Additionally, AI may be used to analyse the candidate’s body and facial emotions. This information can then be used to increase applicant engagement by communicating with them on a one-on-one basis, in a way they will positively respond to.
Importantly, candidate engagement can’t be 100% replaced by chatbots and AI. Make sure you use these tools as a support to your very personal, human engagement of candidates throughout the hiring process.
It’s an exciting time in the sphere of recruitment automation trends. And adopting automation is critical for recruiters to stay relevant to today’s candidates.
According to a survey by SurveyMonkey and Microsoft, 93% of the 1,000+ millennial workers polled claimed that having up-to-date technology is vital in deciding where to work.
To attract the greatest people in today’s environment and reduce time-to-hire, recruiters must prioritise automation, giving them more time to create and cultivate candidate relationships.
And one last point, we’ve independently sourced a number of recruitment automation platforms for your review, and provide them below:
Finally, please do contact us if you have any feedback or comments.
As one of the world’s leading providers of contingent worker management solutions, CXC is well-positioned to optimise all elements of your contingent workforce strategy.
With operations in more than 50 countries across five continents and decades of experience, we can assist with every aspect of your program.
If you’d like to discuss recruitment automation trends, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
