Key Takeaways
- Voice-activated recruitment assistants are gaining traction and offer significant potential for efficiency improvements.
- AI tools can enhance various aspects of recruitment, including job description optimization, talent pool searching, interview scheduling, and bias reduction.
- Organizations should optimize content for voice search, explore integration capabilities, train their teams, and address potential challenges like data security.
Voice-activated technology continues to grow in popularity in nearly all facets of life, from smart speakers featuring Alexa and Siri to voice-assisted smartphone technology. Using AI speech recognition technology and machine learning, voice-activated solutions help people perform everyday functions faster and more efficiently.
Sixty-two percent of US adults use a voice assistant on at least one device, and this trend has the potential to extend to the workplace. The recruitment process offers many opportunities for organizations to discover the numerous benefits of voice-activated assistants. These tools can perform tasks that keep the recruitment process moving and help save recruitment professionals countless hours.
Current State of Voice-Activated Recruitment
In a 2023 survey, 12% of hiring professionals used AI in recruitment or talent management. This suggests that organizations can explore the application of AI tools, such as voice-activated recruitment assistants, further. Though these tools may be new to many talent acquisition professionals, some organizations have already explored their use in various scenarios.
Today, voice-activated recruitment assistants support the hiring process in the following ways:
- Job descriptions optimized for voice search
In addition to optimizing job descriptions for keywords, recruitment teams can enhance descriptions by incorporating phrases that answer potential voice search questions.
- Job postings integrated with smart speakers
One national food chain enables individuals to initiate the application process via an Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant device.
- Talent pool search and sorting
Recruiters can ask voice-activated assistants to identify which candidates in the talent pool possess the required qualifications for specific positions.
- Interview scheduling
Voice-command candidate scheduling speeds up the hiring process and reduces the chances of candidate drop-off due to a lack of communication.
Voice-command candidate scheduling speeds up the hiring process and reduces the chances of candidate drop off due to a lack of communication.
Benefits of Voice-Activated Recruitment Assistants
Voice-activated assistants can be a differentiator in helping organizations identify hard-to-find candidates and move them through the assessment and hiring process more efficiently. Integrating voice assistant solutions into the recruitment process can deliver the following benefits:
- Increased Efficiency
According to a Stanford University study, people can usually give voice commands three times faster than they can type them. So instead of typing search queries or sorting through report details, recruiters can ask voice assistants questions such as "Who has Jane Smith interviewed with for this position?" or "Which applicants for the IT position have SQL experience?
Voice-activated tools can perform queries as quickly as recruitment professionals can conceive and ask them, even if it means accessing different recruitment platforms and data sets. During high-volume recruitment periods, the hiring team can source, assess, and onboard new hires faster, allowing them to meet seasonal and other business demands more efficiently.
- Improved Cost Management
Considering that the cost of making a bad hire can reach two times the employee's annual salary, every poor hire avoided is money saved. Voice-enabled tools can match applicant skills to existing candidate personas, helping recruitment teams make better-quality hires in less time than manual matching. As a result, organizations can realize lower cost-per-hire and time-to-hire.
Tip: Candidate personas help organizations define the ideal candidate for each open position. Recruitics' employer branding and job advertising solutions help organizations attract those ideal candidates more effectively.
- Enhanced Candidate Experience
Voice-activated recruitment assistants act as an extension of recruiters, allowing them to be in multiple places simultaneously. Recruiters can command voice assistants to schedule candidates for interviews, draft email responses to candidate questions, and keep candidates updated about the next steps. Moreover, these messages can be personalized according to each candidate and where they are in the hiring process.
Voice assistants can also interact with candidates directly, for example, via 24/7 voice chatbots that guide candidates through the application process, explain what to expect at the interview stage, and provide feedback along the way.
- Efficient Data Utilization
AI tools using voice recognition technology can analyze large amounts of data and deliver insights that recruitment teams can use for data-driven decision-making. These tools can identify patterns and unlock missed opportunities to identify target candidates by gathering information from existing databases. Additionally, recruiters can ask the assistant to sort candidate profiles according to specific criteria, including work experience, skills, location, and application date.
Tip: At any point during the hiring process, hiring professionals need real-time answers to questions about applicants, their sources, and how hiring tracks against objectives. Recruitics' BrionTM—the world's first AI-powered conversational analyst for recruitment—can answer those questions, delivering knowledge and insights that support better data-driven decision-making.
- Targeted Bias Reduction
Voice-activated assistants can be invaluable in helping root out bias and support organizational diversity hiring goals. For example, they can assess applications according to a consistent set of criteria without making judgments about applicants' backgrounds based on age, name, address, or other demographics. When voice assistants are used in video interviews and other assessment forms, they can reduce bias by asking candidates the same questions in the same format.
How Recruitment Teams Can Prepare for Voice-Activated Recruitment
AI-powered tools such as chatbots and programmatic job advertising continue to revolutionize how organizations identify and engage prospective hires, but they may only be the tip of the iceberg. Voice assistants represent yet another way to leverage AI for successful recruitment.
Here's what talent acquisition teams can do to use these tools effectively:
- Optimize job descriptions and career content for voice search
As job seekers increasingly use voice search when looking for job opportunities, they'll ask the assistant questions rather than typing in keywords. Therefore, career sites, job descriptions, and ads should be written to answer the what, where, and when questions applicants may be asking. So when applicants ask, "Where is there a sales assistant position near me," the voice-enabled assistant will deliver the positions recruiters want applicants to see.
- Explore platforms with voice-integration capability
As job boards become more integrated with smart speakers like Amazon's Alexa, recruiters can post there and reach more prospective applicants. It's also a good idea to determine if existing recruitment platforms, such as the applicant tracking system (ATS) and candidate relationship management (CRM), have or are planning to add voice-recognition capabilities.
Tip: Well-integrated recruitment platforms are critical to a successful talent acquisition strategy. An all-in-one recruitment analytics platform helps recruitment professionals have real-time visibility into how each platform and recruitment activity work together to help the organization reach its hiring goals.
- Train the recruitment team on voice technology utilization
Though most people have some experience using voice-enabled technology in their personal lives, they may need to become more familiar with its many applications at work. Training recruitment professionals to use voice assistants will improve utilization and help each individual use the technology for maximum benefit.
- Anticipate and overcome potential obstacles
Adopting new technology comes with unique challenges, and voice-activated assistants are no exception. Recruitment teams should prepare by understanding these challenges and adopting strategies to overcome them. Potential obstacles include:
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- Data privacy and security
Since voice assistants collect, analyze, and store candidate data, they can be prone to hacking or theft. Organizations can keep this data secure by applying the same security protocols for other tech platforms.
- Balancing technology with human judgment and expertise
The speed and efficiency of AI tools make it tempting to use them in place of human workflows. However, like other AI technologies, voice assistant tools should enhance the work of recruitment professionals, not replace it.
- The potential for bias
Though voice-activated recruitment assistants can reduce bias by making the hiring process more consistent, they can create bias if not appropriately trained. Talent acquisition teams can prevent this by routinely auditing the tools and measuring their impact on hiring metrics.
- Look for future possible applications
As voice assistant tools become more interactive, there may be new opportunities for integration with other HR systems. Assistants may also improve at processing the tone and nuance of commands, potentially delivering richer and more detailed results. Lastly, talent acquisition teams can look for ways to utilize voice-activated assistants with predictive analytics tools, thus making it possible to be more proactive in candidate attraction and engagement.
Explore the Possibilities of Voice-Activated Recruitment
Talent acquisition teams are recognizing the value of embracing technology for better automation and decision-making. Voice technology is one of the newer innovations that can help organizations become even more competitive when recruiting talent.
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