While much has been written about the role of AI and automation in talent acquisition, recruitment agencies can strengthen their talent communities by applying these technologies across the candidate journey to deliver a superior experience.
Doing so will help keep their talent communities engaged through potentially swift and extreme shifts in talent demand – helping fill positions when demand is high and stay connected and loyal when demand is low.
The Talent Community Loyalty Loop
A talent community attracts and retains the type of people required to fill current and future positions. It fosters an environment for companies to build their talent networks, nurture relationships with current employees and candidates, and hire and grow as needed.
The talent community journey starts with your candidates’ initial experience with your firm. Then, they might move on to consider the organisation and, potentially, a role within it. The entire process from there to becoming an employee (or not), is part of that journey, and advanced technology can help strengthen it. Anyone in your talent community loyalty loop can advocate for your organisation and refer people to it, depending on their experience with you.
Strengthen Your Talent Community
By thoughtfully applying AI and automation throughout this loop, recruiters can consistently strengthen their talent communities whilst navigating shifts in demand and supply for candidates due to a changeable market.
For example, a candidate engagement platform that integrates with your ATS can automate email or text updates to candidates via an AI-enabled conversation bot across the hiring process. The bot screens candidates via customised prompts, ensures they receive timely and accurate responses to questions, schedules interviews, and engages with them even when offices are closed, thus improving their experience and engagement with your organisation and reducing your time-to-hire. By automating such time-intensive, repetitive work, recruitment consultants can focus on developing and nurturing relationships with candidates and clients instead.
Recruitment agency Kforce streamlined its candidate referral and application process via an app-based referral program that has reduced time-to-hire and helped match highly skilled professionals with the right opportunities. During just three days, the app helped more than 4,500 people connect to work.
Such tools greatly increase the likelihood that a candidate’s initial experience — which fuels the loyalty loop — is positive, and decreases the risk of them dropping out of the process by making sure there are subsequent touchpoints throughout.
Brand Ambassadors
AI and automation build your brand ambassador network, no matter what the situation. You must continually build, nurture and grow your candidate relationships throughout their journey with your firm. AI and automation can help you optimise processes to realise cost savings and deliver a superior experience.. Technology can play a leading role in strengthening your talent community loyalty loop — from the first greeting to being recruited and accepting the position all the way to becoming a brand ambassador. AI and automation will help you keep your talent community engaged, active and loyal to you.
This article originally appeared in The Staffing Stream.