8 some strange myths about HR technology
How many provocative materials with headlines we see recently “Artificial Intelligence kills professions”, “Bots will replace recruiters”, “Profession HR will die in 2019”, “Companies buy Klava’s robot, and no one needs recruiters!” And it is every day! How many have already committed the destruction of the world, just the fall of the culture of recruitment - horror. But we have a different opinion and see the real picture with bots, AI, automation and other processes.
And let's start with a simple example - how much easier has it become to communicate after the advent of the Internet? or call up thanks to mobile phones? For some reason, this kind of technology did not contribute to panic.
1. Technology reduces work time.
According to Glassdoor statistics, the hiring process for an employee in 2016 was 23 days compared to 10 days in 2013 (in the UK alone, the number of days spent on hiring increased from two to four weeks). This means that they began to spend significantly more time on screening (a lot of testing) - companies are trying to get the maximum amount of information about the candidate to make sure that he is suitable or not. Well, so as not to lose an employee in a month, and not justify the expectations of a person.
Technologies make it possible to speed up the implementation of some tasks and approach the selection process in detail. Tools create for you a more detailed picture of recruitment - so that you do not lose sight of anything. So the technologies that have been done aloud and alight and did everything for you are not true.
2. Technology does not affect the number of employees (comforting !?)
For some companies, the use of technology is becoming a vital necessity. And the transition, of course, is associated with the rejection of the monotonous work that employees do.
At meetings and meetings, we often talk about how we come to the company with a ready-made solution. For example. Here in the company "N" 10 girls regularly retype the data in tables. Only this is done 24/7. And, say, we have a solution for such situations (well, we're talking about automation!). After that, questions arise, they say, but how so? After all, jobs are disappearing!
Let this not sound very cynical. Yes, places disappear, but someone will have the opportunity to do some more interesting work, and not do routine tasks again and again. It always has been: it’s not everywhere that we still have manual labor and manual work, right? In this case, there is no additional value in this and cannot be.
But the obvious plus of HR-technologies is that you can give stupid tasks to the hands of bots / platforms / systems, but at the same time open new positions with tasks that can only be done by humans. And this will help balance the situation: give the routine to the machine, finding other directions for the development of the company.
3. HR’s work is reduced to zero - “they will definitely replace us!”
Personnel officers are a thing of the past, but cool specialists in the field have remained, aren't they? Now work with personnel never ends: search, involvement, adaptation, training, talent development, and then training and work with the brand!
According to a whole range of studies, the likelihood that robots will replace the work of HR managers is 0.55%. So there is nothing to fear.
And how can the appearance of bots bother you at all? Recruitment will vary. As regards point positions, the approach will be more and more detailed, as regards mass ones, there will appear more opportunities for carrying out actions with a large number of candidates at once with minimal human involvement.
Yes, we expect that competition for talented specialists will also increase. So much more knowledge will be needed: to know what is happening in the market, what candidates are waiting for, how to retain employees, than to motivate them tomorrow, and what today. The HR department will have to combine many functions in itself, to become a fundamental direction for business. Become a marketer, learn to count ROI and own analytics, understand how to look for special specialists, be it a developer, administrator in the office or another accountant. Technology comes to the rescue right at that moment, allowing you to fulfill responsibilities and monitor efficiency in one platform (or several, if necessary).
4. Artificial intelligence turn recruitment upside down
Habrahabr, of course, is not the best place to think about AI, but we will try.
What is AI? This is a scientific direction (emphasize “science” several times), based on the modeling of human activity, which is traditionally considered intellectual. AI is a story about how a machine can do something. This is what was previously considered the prerogative of man. There are several “examples” of how AI already affects recruiting and what technological products are currently being created on the market (Mya, Textio, Pymetrics and so on). Why do we have doubts about the fact that AI is actually present in most projects (which claim to be “really use AI”)?
- “Artificial Intelligence” is an excellent phrase primarily for product promotion. But the bottom line is that this inserted “AI” may not affect the convenience and innovativeness of the service. Which in itself is somehow strange, agree!
- Mystery! It directly surrounds all startups that claim to use artificial intelligence. All services for recruitment, which are now positioning themselves as AI's, contain some elements, for example, helping in the search or analysis of human needs, skills. None of them speak openly and in detail about how the technology works and how it really relates to the concept of AI.
So we will follow the development of events and the real signs of AI in recruitment. Take a look at something - let us know.
5. Technologies are unsafe - everyone is following us, and here it is!
Okay, that is, you are ready to entrust your fingerprints to Apple, but no, to switch from the old system installed on the computer? Amazing We all use cards for a long time, pay for purchases with a smartphone, and share the details of personal life on social networks. Why are you so scared of cloud systems? Always ask the creators of the platforms you use, where your sacred data is stored, in which country and how well it is protected. Now everything is pretty strict with 152 Federal Laws, so all services have to adjust. And if not, then they will not give you any adequate answer.
6. Automation is solid magic buttons!
OP! And the tool itself is looking for candidates.
OP! The brand of the employer simply sparkles with attractiveness.
It doesn’t work like that. Automation is the ability to transfer to the machine (okay, the system) the tasks that you do manually and spend time. Automation is a rejection of routine functions in favor of intellectual work. So if you have never looked for candidates in messengers, and you never needed it - why do you need a bot in Telegram? A hundred times to weigh such a decision is necessary.
It’s such a headache to try to keep up with all emerging digital solutions without analyzing the need to use them. And not understanding why you need, say, a video super-super-bot, a new site with a huge animation about a career with a blog, auto search for candidates on Instagram or something else. “Because the company“ Z ”already has it!” Is a bad answer.
7. Adapting to a new instrument is a painful process with losing money.
There are two usually frightening points here: “reconcile for a very long time” and “difficult to use”. So let's figure it out.
With some companies, coordination is a matter of a couple of letters. And now they already use the system and storm the market of candidates. Debugged processes within the company = success in the implementation of systems. But all this, of course, depends on the client. Sometimes coordination takes time and yet in the end it’s better to agree once and then just renew the subscription, see how the system grows and develops and enjoy it. This is a question that needs to be resolved once.
And to the second dubious myth:Yes, we know that some companies are only now moving in general from “folders on a computer” to special systems for work. But this is provided that one tool allows you to reduce the cost of closing a vacancy (remember a case with interrupting information from the tables), increase the efficiency of the team, you can spend time training. Again - this is worth the effort and certainly is no excuse for storing data in Google Docs. And remember that any system is created for the user: so that you can learn faster, understand and start working. Just like when adapting a new employee;)
8. If you don’t target and don’t search, the best source of search is a work site.
Technologies at the same time made it possible to find an individual approach to each candidate, and allowed to turn to hundreds and thousands of potentially interested.
That is why it is now so important to be able to target your message, to search for candidates with very specific characteristics. Understand the portrait of your audience. Automated work with a whole range of sources allows you to constantly adapt to changing interests of the audience, observe activity, and precisely formulate requests to your candidates.
We conducted an experiment with one company - we asked them not to use the work site for two weeks, to publish vacancies on other resources. So here. The number of respondents has not changed. The “quality” of candidates has become higher. And this is logical, because when you look for sources of attracting candidates for specific vacancies, you find sites taking into account the specifics of the position. This only works with part of the vacancies, but still it works. So it allows you to reduce the distance from point A to point B: from you to a candidate with specific experience and skills.
So the analytical approach, together with the right platform, allows us to destroy even the myth that only one type of source brings real results.
Willingness to use new tools and learn to set specific goals and objectives within a business is also an area of HR technology that remains to be mastered and mastered.
And let's start with a simple example - how much easier has it become to communicate after the advent of the Internet? or call up thanks to mobile phones? For some reason, this kind of technology did not contribute to panic.
1. Technology reduces work time.
It turns out that this is not entirely true.
According to Glassdoor statistics, the hiring process for an employee in 2016 was 23 days compared to 10 days in 2013 (in the UK alone, the number of days spent on hiring increased from two to four weeks). This means that they began to spend significantly more time on screening (a lot of testing) - companies are trying to get the maximum amount of information about the candidate to make sure that he is suitable or not. Well, so as not to lose an employee in a month, and not justify the expectations of a person.
Technologies make it possible to speed up the implementation of some tasks and approach the selection process in detail. Tools create for you a more detailed picture of recruitment - so that you do not lose sight of anything. So the technologies that have been done aloud and alight and did everything for you are not true.
2. Technology does not affect the number of employees (comforting !?)
Affect, but say “replace”, you can’t
For some companies, the use of technology is becoming a vital necessity. And the transition, of course, is associated with the rejection of the monotonous work that employees do.
At meetings and meetings, we often talk about how we come to the company with a ready-made solution. For example. Here in the company "N" 10 girls regularly retype the data in tables. Only this is done 24/7. And, say, we have a solution for such situations (well, we're talking about automation!). After that, questions arise, they say, but how so? After all, jobs are disappearing!
Let this not sound very cynical. Yes, places disappear, but someone will have the opportunity to do some more interesting work, and not do routine tasks again and again. It always has been: it’s not everywhere that we still have manual labor and manual work, right? In this case, there is no additional value in this and cannot be.
But the obvious plus of HR-technologies is that you can give stupid tasks to the hands of bots / platforms / systems, but at the same time open new positions with tasks that can only be done by humans. And this will help balance the situation: give the routine to the machine, finding other directions for the development of the company.
3. HR’s work is reduced to zero - “they will definitely replace us!”
No, this is not true
Personnel officers are a thing of the past, but cool specialists in the field have remained, aren't they? Now work with personnel never ends: search, involvement, adaptation, training, talent development, and then training and work with the brand!
According to a whole range of studies, the likelihood that robots will replace the work of HR managers is 0.55%. So there is nothing to fear.
And how can the appearance of bots bother you at all? Recruitment will vary. As regards point positions, the approach will be more and more detailed, as regards mass ones, there will appear more opportunities for carrying out actions with a large number of candidates at once with minimal human involvement.
Yes, we expect that competition for talented specialists will also increase. So much more knowledge will be needed: to know what is happening in the market, what candidates are waiting for, how to retain employees, than to motivate them tomorrow, and what today. The HR department will have to combine many functions in itself, to become a fundamental direction for business. Become a marketer, learn to count ROI and own analytics, understand how to look for special specialists, be it a developer, administrator in the office or another accountant. Technology comes to the rescue right at that moment, allowing you to fulfill responsibilities and monitor efficiency in one platform (or several, if necessary).
4. Artificial intelligence turn recruitment upside down
Well, rather, talk about it
Habrahabr, of course, is not the best place to think about AI, but we will try.
What is AI? This is a scientific direction (emphasize “science” several times), based on the modeling of human activity, which is traditionally considered intellectual. AI is a story about how a machine can do something. This is what was previously considered the prerogative of man. There are several “examples” of how AI already affects recruiting and what technological products are currently being created on the market (Mya, Textio, Pymetrics and so on). Why do we have doubts about the fact that AI is actually present in most projects (which claim to be “really use AI”)?
- “Artificial Intelligence” is an excellent phrase primarily for product promotion. But the bottom line is that this inserted “AI” may not affect the convenience and innovativeness of the service. Which in itself is somehow strange, agree!
- Mystery! It directly surrounds all startups that claim to use artificial intelligence. All services for recruitment, which are now positioning themselves as AI's, contain some elements, for example, helping in the search or analysis of human needs, skills. None of them speak openly and in detail about how the technology works and how it really relates to the concept of AI.
So we will follow the development of events and the real signs of AI in recruitment. Take a look at something - let us know.
5. Technologies are unsafe - everyone is following us, and here it is!
No it's safe
Okay, that is, you are ready to entrust your fingerprints to Apple, but no, to switch from the old system installed on the computer? Amazing We all use cards for a long time, pay for purchases with a smartphone, and share the details of personal life on social networks. Why are you so scared of cloud systems? Always ask the creators of the platforms you use, where your sacred data is stored, in which country and how well it is protected. Now everything is pretty strict with 152 Federal Laws, so all services have to adjust. And if not, then they will not give you any adequate answer.
6. Automation is solid magic buttons!
And again no
OP! And the tool itself is looking for candidates.
OP! The brand of the employer simply sparkles with attractiveness.
It doesn’t work like that. Automation is the ability to transfer to the machine (okay, the system) the tasks that you do manually and spend time. Automation is a rejection of routine functions in favor of intellectual work. So if you have never looked for candidates in messengers, and you never needed it - why do you need a bot in Telegram? A hundred times to weigh such a decision is necessary.
It’s such a headache to try to keep up with all emerging digital solutions without analyzing the need to use them. And not understanding why you need, say, a video super-super-bot, a new site with a huge animation about a career with a blog, auto search for candidates on Instagram or something else. “Because the company“ Z ”already has it!” Is a bad answer.
7. Adapting to a new instrument is a painful process with losing money.
No
There are two usually frightening points here: “reconcile for a very long time” and “difficult to use”. So let's figure it out.
With some companies, coordination is a matter of a couple of letters. And now they already use the system and storm the market of candidates. Debugged processes within the company = success in the implementation of systems. But all this, of course, depends on the client. Sometimes coordination takes time and yet in the end it’s better to agree once and then just renew the subscription, see how the system grows and develops and enjoy it. This is a question that needs to be resolved once.
And to the second dubious myth:Yes, we know that some companies are only now moving in general from “folders on a computer” to special systems for work. But this is provided that one tool allows you to reduce the cost of closing a vacancy (remember a case with interrupting information from the tables), increase the efficiency of the team, you can spend time training. Again - this is worth the effort and certainly is no excuse for storing data in Google Docs. And remember that any system is created for the user: so that you can learn faster, understand and start working. Just like when adapting a new employee;)
8. If you don’t target and don’t search, the best source of search is a work site.
No, because this is not an ideal source (like any other)!
Technologies at the same time made it possible to find an individual approach to each candidate, and allowed to turn to hundreds and thousands of potentially interested.
That is why it is now so important to be able to target your message, to search for candidates with very specific characteristics. Understand the portrait of your audience. Automated work with a whole range of sources allows you to constantly adapt to changing interests of the audience, observe activity, and precisely formulate requests to your candidates.
We conducted an experiment with one company - we asked them not to use the work site for two weeks, to publish vacancies on other resources. So here. The number of respondents has not changed. The “quality” of candidates has become higher. And this is logical, because when you look for sources of attracting candidates for specific vacancies, you find sites taking into account the specifics of the position. This only works with part of the vacancies, but still it works. So it allows you to reduce the distance from point A to point B: from you to a candidate with specific experience and skills.
So the analytical approach, together with the right platform, allows us to destroy even the myth that only one type of source brings real results.
Willingness to use new tools and learn to set specific goals and objectives within a business is also an area of HR technology that remains to be mastered and mastered.