Artificial intelligence is a hot topic right now – especially in business. Corporate investment in artificial intelligence was over £90 billion in 2022 – that’s a huge increase on the comparatively small investment of £12.7 billion in 2015.
Recruitment is certainly not exempt from the influence of AI. More and more hirers are using artificial intelligence as a tool to screen, and even interview candidates.
In this article we’re going to be taking a closer look at AI resume screening, how it works and how it can benefit you. Armed with the information here, you should be able to decide whether it’s a tool you need in your recruitment arsenal.
What is AI resume screening?
There has been a large uptake of resume screening or parsing amongst hirers, but what is resume parsing? And how does resume parsing use AI, and what is the AI looking for?
AI resume screening is the process of using machine learning to filter CVs or resumes before a human member of the hiring team looks at the applications.
This removes candidates from the process who do not have relevant experience saving time and effort. It can also help lead to higher quality and more diverse hires.
AI resume screening is normally provided as part of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). An ATS is designed to track applicants throughout the hiring process.
How can AI screen job candidates?
There are three main ways in which AI can screen applications for jobs to help build an effective recruitment strategy. Either by keyword, grammar, or statistics.
Keyword-based resume screening
The simplest way AI can screen resumes is through keyword screening. When keyword screening an algorithm is looking for individual words in a CV that match the job description.
For a graduate role, this could be “bachelor's”, “internship”, or “experience”.
Grammar-based resume screening
Grammar-based screening is slightly more advanced. It uses machine learning to understand how sentences are structured and to understand their meaning.
This allows the AI to get a much more in-depth and accurate understanding of an applicant. This makes it a preferred method compared to keyword screening.
Statistics-based resume screening
Statistical resume screening builds upon grammatical screening. It can understand sentences, but it can also gain insight into employment timelines, location, etc. This type of resume parsing is the most valuable and in-depth.
How does it know what to look for?
AI uses a variety of data to conduct an effective screening, just as job posting data, historical hiring data and industry or role specific data.
Job posting data is particularly essential as it includes details like required skills, qualifications, and experiences specified by employers.
As clear and detailed job postings enhance the AI’s ability to perform accurate matches, employers should focus on crafting precise descriptions. This will ensure that the screening process is not only efficient but also fair.
Combined, this data helps AI systems identify and match the key criteria from resumes to determine the best candidates for a role.
How many companies use AI resume screening?
Technology in recruitment is widely used. Recent studies suggest that many companies are now using ATS to screen applicants before a human becomes involved in the process. This is particularly true amongst larger companies.
Around 97% of Fortune 500 companies report using ATS software in their hiring process whilst 66% of large companies and 25% of small companies do so as well. But how do you know if your company will actually benefit from AI resume screening?
Do you need AI resume screening?
Professionals are always on the lookout for new technologies to help them and their teams perform more efficiently and achieve better results. Tools like workflow managers, metaverse technologies, and AI resume screeners all provide big benefits, but it can be hard to know if you actually need them.
Here are some major benefits of using an artificial intelligence-based resume screening tool.
Save yourself time
One of the major advantages of resume screening from the hiring team’s point of view is that it can save a lot of time, enabling you to quickly add high-value individuals to your candidate database.
With the proliferation of job sites like LinkedIn and Indeed making applying to jobs en masse quick and easy, the average position can see hundreds of applicants. For a hiring manager to sift through this many resumes and cover letters can take days, and the proportion of applicants who will actually meet the required criteria is very small.
Another of the benefits of AI in resume screening is that it can help to speed up these repetitive and routine tasks by automating them. An AI-powered ATS can scan through hundreds of applications quickly and then present the hiring manager with only the applicants with relevant experience.
Reduce human error
When working through a stack of hundreds of applications over several days, there is a lot of scope for human error. Even with the best intentions in the world, when a person is performing a repetitive task for many hours on end, they are likely to make mistakes.
This could be not picking up on an applicant's relevant experience, missing an application, forgetting to contact an applicant for more information etc.
By getting AI to perform the repetitive and time-consuming elements of the hiring process, hiring managers can focus their valuable time and energy elsewhere, reducing the chance of mistakes throughout the hiring process.
Eliminate bias
Bias is everywhere and it impacts important decisions such as those made during a hiring process.
Many companies now have diversity hiring policies. You will often see this stated in job listings and on company websites. However, despite this, historically underrepresented candidates are 25% more likely to be ghosted when applying for jobs.
This may not be an active decision on the part of hirers, but the unconscious bias of human hirers does unfortunately make its way into the applicant screening process.
Theoretically, AI resume screening can remove this bias. If an AI tool is purely focused on the information contained in a CV and cover letter and how it matches the job requirements then unconscious bias should be avoided.
However, AI cannot remove biases from every step of the process. Inevitably at some point, humans do have to start making decisions, and their biases will still factor into their hiring decisions.
Improve the quality of hires
By saving time on the resume screening process, you as a hirer can focus more time and energy on the interview and assessment parts of the hiring process. This allows you to get a better idea of your candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately make the best hire you can.
Speed up the hiring process
From providing fast customer service with a remote tool like RealVNC to hiring a new team member quickly, moving fast is essential in many facets of business – people don’t like to wait!
The average hiring process now takes 44 days – that’s a long time. Not only is this costly in terms of time and resources, but it could also cost you your best applicants.
60% of job applicants, in fact, are unimpressed by long hiring processes. If you’re spending too much time screening applicants they may want to withdraw themselves from the application process or look elsewhere for work. AI resume screening is an effective way to mitigate this problem.
Using AI elsewhere in your recruitment process
AI in recruitment isn’t only useful when it comes to screening applicants. It can also help you to identify potential hires in hard-to-fill roles. AI can also be useful when it comes to monitoring the success of hires.
Using gamification during the recruitment process can engage candidates and make the experience more interactive, ensuring that you attract top talent effectively.
Don’t forget that other technologies like a recruitment metrics dashboard are also powerful in improving your hiring process.
Target hard-to-find talent groups with AI
Finding candidates is hard, especially when you are hiring for a job with niche or unusual requirements. You might get lots of applications but you’ll usually find almost none of them match the requirements in the job description.
This is an excellent use case for artificial intelligence. AI can be harnessed to trawl the web for individuals who match your job requirements, even if they haven’t applied for your job opening. It can even be used to predict factors like how open to a new role an individual may be.
Use AI to monitor new hire progress
After you have found a suitable candidate and hired them, it is essential to monitor their progress at the company to ensure they are a good fit. Again, artificial intelligence can help here.
By monitoring factors such as interaction in work chats, email response times, and work output you can make sure that your new hire is delivering as you had expected.
The bottom line: Should you be using AI in your hiring process?
Armed with the information in this article you should now be better placed to decide on whether you need to employ AI resume screening in your hiring process.
If you often find yourself swamped by hundreds of applications for one role, but routinely only want to speak to a handful of applicants, then AI screening is probably right for you.
Its major benefits are the elimination of repetitive and time-consuming tasks that can be easily automated. The interview and ultimate hiring decision still require a good level of skills on your part but, overall, AI screening allows you to focus your energy where you are most valuable.
