Back in the not-so-far future, traditional hiring processes felt like a let-down, and a majority of applicants felt exhausted and fatigued after going through such mundane activities. While this was happening, and tens of thousands of talents were fruitlessly struggling with the system, the concept of “chatbots in the hiring process” was merely a spectral string of thought too hard to grasp, and the idea of leaving things in the digital hands of binary robots seemed far-fetched.
However, as new times come to the present, people become more open to new and exciting technologies. For the last decade, chatbots have been gaining a massive fan base among the HR teams and applicants. Once washed-up procedures that bore applicants to death had shapeshifted into an engaging and streamlined process where no one felt left out.
Back in the stone Age, nearly 65% of jobseekers reported never hearing from the recruiting team regarding their application forms. Wandering blind-sided for weeks at times not only further pushed away potential talents from companies but also shattered the organizations’ good images and brand outreach.
Fortunately, when chatbots hit the business mainstream and turned into an object of “regularity,” we started observing a 180° turn in applicant satisfaction rates and organizational magnetism. After introducing the chatbot, disgruntled applicants were less likely to pass along negative experiences of interacting with an organization and their HR team to others because the issue had vanished. Best-fit talents were now joy-hopping after finishing an application experience with chatbots, no more tedious and boring traditional filling-out-forms application process, no more hours wasted, and chatbots which did the job correctly and were cool!
Don’t let the title inject fear into your souls; this is actually a good thing.
We covered, to some degree, the disadvantages of not having chatbots in the hiring process. Now, let’s take a look at figuratively. The vastly-known case of “Virgin Mobile” misusing the hiring process didn’t leave conversations in business sectors for a long time. It was estimated that each year, they lost over $5 Million of revenue due to the absents of a modern and problem-solving recruitment process. However, they didn’t have to wait long before chatbots were introduced and set them back on the right track.
So, with now the dystopia of chatbots in the hiring process on the horizon, we can expect mitigation of wasted time, energy, human resources, and investments. Chatbots empower applicants to simultaneously shoot for several positions in different organizations, without the growing fear of losing their chances because one of the processes took ages to finish.
Another plus would be the constant feedback and communications available with chatbots in the hiring process. We mentioned before that many candidates felt burnt out and unappreciated because they never heard back from the recruiting team. Luckily, that’s not the case anymore. With human hands cut off from the procedure, and machine-based algorithms in the fray, applicants can be sure that they’re never again left in the dark. Chatbots have the ability to give fast, precise, and constant feedback and status change to the candidates. Additionally, they can be used to answer applicants’ FAQ to save time.
Chatbots in the hiring process can be of aid to the other party, too. Recruiters and busy hiring teams put chatbots into use and render their abilities to free time and resources. For recruiters, chatbots can be integrated into their jam-packed screening/interviewing schedule to give candidates a preferred time and date that works best for them.
Recruiters take advantage of chatbots to remove the peaky task of sifting through countless resumes and application forms, play the time-consuming phone-tag game with candidates, and help applicants by giving them fewer and fewer applications to fill.
What chatbots do is that they collect essential information from applicants — such as their contact information or resume/application forms — rally out screening questions like past experiences, knowledge, and skills for candidates without the interference from recruiters, rank candidates, and if needed, set up interviews with the best-fits.
Applicants feel though they have to conquer the Greek Gods to be finally permitted to submit their forms, or at least, they used to think like that before the implementation of chatbots in the hiring process.
Before the advent of these friendly bots, applicants had to go through excruciating and devilish phases to successfully put their forms down for consideration. It wasn’t uncommon to hear a candidate bitch about having to put in their information once again, even after crafting up a customized resume for a specific job title. In more than half of such cases, applicants felt burned out and go out of the whole thing with only a negative experience. Not to mention, some of the more traditional application layouts were utterly inaccessible without a computer, and even having a desktop didn’t necessarily mean a clean and comfortable form-filling!
Studies have confirmed that applicants are more likely to fill out a form on-the-go. They want to submit their forms in matters of minutes, instead of clinging to the backbreaking torture of scrolling through dozens of pages on a big display. Thanks to the presence of chatbots in the hiring process, today, applicants can be done and over with the recruitment operation by only answering the bot’s questions; they don’t even need to be home or somewhere with computer-access anymore. New chatbots are easily programmed to function on mobile-friendly webpages, which recruiters and organizations prepare to streamline the process. They can type in or square out their answers by a few touches or slides wherever they are and whenever they want. Statistics show that the unsatisfactory rates have dropped drastically, and roughly 78% of candidates have switched to their mobile phones to do the application process, and to nobody’s awe, they like to keep it that way.
The whole point of this segment is to enable applicants to run through the process on their own terms, in the location of their choosing, and in the best time, they see fit. The endgame is to give them the authority and space to input their information when they’re most relaxed and comfortable. By enabling the candidates to do so, organizations try to prepare a more pleasurable hiring process, and, in the meantime, make a significant stride into enhancing employee experience (since it begins even before one’s hired!)
According to entrepreneuer.com: “One study showed that candidates with a bad application experience are likely to take action on it. Fifty-nine percent of those interviewed said that they would tell others not to apply to the company, and 42 percent would no longer support its products or services. It also can lead to negative public reviews on sites like Glassdoor. On the other hand, if the candidate had a positive experience, 88 percent would be likely to tell other people to apply to the company, and 71 percent said they would be more inclined to support the company by purchasing their products and services. Additionally, 80 percent said they would attempt to apply to the company again, while 60 percent would tell others to apply.”
What we can take from the statistic mentioned above is that the more you invest on your application process and try to level it up, the more people will see you, your organization, and your brand as a high-quality working atmosphere where people are valuable, appreciated, and take care of. This paragraph shows that improving candidate/employee experience by introducing chatbots in the hiring process can have a lasting positive effect on your company and how applicants perceive it.
Same as many other beneficiary examples of robots in the recruitment process, having the chatbots in the hiring process helps out quite a lot, even after the whole thing.
Many may be under the assumption that chatbots are only useful before a newcomer joins an organization. Well, they can’t be more wrong. Usually, as a part of the onboarding process, “mentors” are assigned to the newly-signed people to get them through the frightening early times of working a new atmosphere. These mentors bring the new employees up to speed, stick around for them to ask questions, and smooth them into the organizational culture. Unfortunately, sometimes this ship has no captain.
Far more than often, mentors can’t be at the location for physical assistance or comfort. Moreover, the fresh-blood usually feel awkward asking questions and instead not go that way. As a result, it’s quite common to see a devastating cycle repeat itself: “an applicant gets hired, has the energy, doesn’t get enough guidance, falls back into themselves, problems start infesting!.”
To counter this problem, and save the newcomers from any further embarrassment, and the HR reps from taxingly answering the same questions over and over again, you can lean on chatbots. They are integrated into the organization’s internal network and are 24/7 available to the newcomers. Also, nobody feels ashamed of asking basic questions from an emotionless robot whose sole purpose is to lift the clouds of uncertainty from its users’ minds.
