Recruitment has evolved over the years into niche spaces focusing on specific skills and industries.
However, while this narrowed focus is something that has changed from the broader approach of the past, what has always set recruitment companies apart is speed and accuracy of placements.
As the landscape keeps changing, technology has emerged to help recruiters to become more efficient than ever, by removing manual processes and enabling them to focus their skills on the human element.
This has become a crucial differentiator in finding the right candidates quickly in a fast-paced digital world.
The first stage of any recruitment process is screening through the myriad CVs on record to find those that match the job requirements.
If this process is done manually, it is incredibly laborious and it can take several days before a shortlist of candidates can be drawn up to be contacted.
With technology solutions in place, however, this manual process can be made far more efficient.
Algorithms can be used to perform this first-line screening and confirm a basic match of skills and qualifications to the job specification in a matter of hours, not days, vastly improving turnaround times in the first stage of screening. This eliminates a significant point of inefficiency and ensures greater accuracy.
When jobs need to be filled, this often must be done at short notice, and it can be immensely frustra-ting for employers to experience delays resulting from inefficient processes and lack of suitable candidates.
Technology helps address both these issues.
Once the initial screening is completed and a shortlist generated, recruiters are then able to apply their skills and knowledge to determine which of the compatible matches might be a fit for the job.
They can also conduct initial interviews with shortlisted candidates via video with a list of basic questions, so that employers can more easily see the person and a bit of their personality to determine whether they might be a good fit for the job and company culture.
In this way, only vetted candidates need to be called in for interviews, which makes the entire process more efficient for all parties concerned.
Technology recruitment cannot replace people, but technology can be used to greatly enhance efficiency, reduce placement times, and improve the accuracy of candidate matching.
Fundamentally, it empowers recruiters to better utilise their skills to find the right person for a job.
However, the people skills remain crucial, because no software can replace human ability to understand cultural fit and other, less technically defined, elements of recruitment.
Ultimately the best person for the job may not be the best candidate on paper, and identifying this needs the right blend of technology and human skills.
- Natasha Addison is general manager of sales at Qunu Staffing.
