Automation by bots is getting ubiquitous. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are catching up fast across industry sectors and a variety of jobs therein. More often than not, we are talking to a bot to enquire about a gym membership, buying a house, fixing an appointment with a doctor, checking availability of our favourite sauce in the store, placing a dinner order, booking a movie ticket, playing a game of chess and so on. The buy-suggestions that we see in our emails, the recommendations of trading an equity or a bond that we receive on our phones, the pop-ups that come on our screens are all by machines and algorithms. They know what products we are buying, the topics that we have an interest in and the people we are in touch with. They know with a fair degree of accuracy what we are most likely to do at a point of time. Does this phenomenon potentially render millions jobless?
As usual, there are two schools of thoughts here. Let’s focus on the job of Recruiters today. Researchers at University of Oxford published a paper in Sep 2013 on future of employment. Please refer to a graph in the study. 47% of the US jobs are most likely to be automated. The study says, the probability of automating the job of an HR Assistant is 90%; that for payroll and timekeeping clerks is 97%. What about the job of Recruiter?
The Real Recruiter will always be in demand!
Jobs which require creativity, social skills and perception or intuition require human capabilities, robots are unable to match yet. Though Artificial intelligence has been rapidly developing, robots are yet to match our abilities to take a decision based on the gut-feel, intuition and emotions. Winning hearts isn’t yet in the domain of robots! Sophia has been granted citizenship, but in the near future, we aren’t likely to marry a robot; a robot is unlikely to conceive life, understand human feelings, sense deeper meanings in the words spoken, express them in the form of an art and so on any time soon.
A typical day of a recruiter has quite a few administrative tasks such as reaching out to the clients who have a need for talent, scheduling meetings, making notes of conversations, preparing documents, maintaining database of candidates, reviewing pipeline of orders, sending proposals, preparing offer letters and so on. Automation is already catching up on all these facets.
The interesting parts in the life of a Recruiter are to build one’s own credibility with the hiring manager and a candidate, ask exploratory questions, listen to the unspoken words, interpret human motives, study behaviours of individuals and groups, connect the dots to build a picture, use it to match an individual’s aspirations with the beliefs and values of an employer.
Are you the Real Recruiter?
Many recruiters these days have a very low level of skills in recruiting. They look for a detailed job description, use job boards to advertise the role, receive applications and manage the pipeline. This is excellence in execution of administrative tasks, soon a bot will do all of these without a glitch.
The Recruiter who works in the realm of discovering real needs, consulting the client on the ideal fit and advising the candidate on the ideal career choice is getting rarer. This is the Real Recruiter who will always be in demand!
It’s not late. Develop now!
Business world is getting increasingly competitive. Talent is one of the most crucial ingredients of the success recipe for an organization. They need the right-fit talent who is not necessarily from the best of colleges and the highest-paid in the market. The right-fit for a company is someone who matches their context well.
The Recruiter must be creative to spot all possible sourcing grounds and reach the target candidates. He or she needs to bring up all the insight about the industry to be able to understand the context of a candidate perceptively. Further, he or she needs to observe various events in an organization and the behaviours of its leaders to comprehend the operating values there. Last but not the least, the recruiter has to mix these perceptive abilities, insights and intuition with one’s social skills to be able to emerge as a credible advisor for the organization and the talent.
One has to consciously build these skills to emerge as a Talent Architect who is coveted by the Top Leaders of any organization.
