How Companies Can Drive Quality Talent with a Chatbot

Chatbots aren’t a new topic of discussion lately. Clearly, we are fans of the chatbot here at Phenom People, as we currently have a chatbot in beta at this very moment.

In the business world, chatbots have helped generate quality customer leads across multiple verticals, from automotive and real estate to ecommerce and technology-based service companies. Multiple websites have a chatbot feature to help assist potential customers with answering relevant questions in order to help them in the discovery process and push them along in their buyer journey.

The question we need to really ask ourselves is: If chatbots have been so successful in generating quality leads and converting them to customers for multiple businesses and industries, why haven’t we fully embraced the same process for recruiting top talent?

Although it’s to be expected, not everyone is a fan of the use of more technology in the recruiting process, and adding a chatbot could further muddy those waters. However, here are some of the ways chatbots can actually help companies drive quality applicants (and ultimately convert the top talent into employees).

Assisting Through Dialogue Imagine a candidate visiting your career site, and then they are greeted by your chatbot in order to start assistive dialogue. The whole purpose of the chatbot is to assist the candidate in understanding more about the company, learning about current opportunities, and ultimately leading to the most appropriate next step based on their unique journey.

The next step could be to fill out an application, email the recruiting department directly, or to read a specific piece of content that would assist the candidate in learning more.

Nurturing Relationships We don’t need statistics to point out that a lot of candidate complain about lack of communication and feedback throughout the recruiting and interviewing process. Often, candidates don’t know who to ask for feedback, and recruiters get caught up with other responsibilities.

Chatbots can help with nurturing relationships on an on-going basis, providing application and interview status updates to candidates on demand. This keeps recruiters moving, and allows candidates to obtain the information they need to feel comfortable and “in the know” in the recruiting process with a company.

Self-Selecting Out It’s nothing new that recruiters are held accountable for meeting certain metrics and KPIs, and these are variable depending on the company. However, recruiters spend a good portion of their time reviewing resumes and pre-screening candidates.

With the help of a chatbot, candidates can actually find out information on the company and current opportunities – and they can actually self-select out in the process. Instead of applying to get a conversation with a recruiter to help determine if it’s a potential fit, the chatbot can help provide basic information to help weed out those candidates that may not be ideal. This goes both ways.

Enhances Human Aspect Arguably, some candidates will say that speaking with a chatbot actually dehumanizes the recruiting process significantly. However, the purpose of the chatbot isn’t to replace the human aspect of the recruiting process. It’s actually meant to enhance it, generating quality leads so that the company can initiate meaningful dialogue with top talent without cutting through the noise.

The chatbot just starts the conversation, answers the basic questions for a candidate, gathers relevant information on them, and then helps them decide if it’s a company they want to pursue. Then, it’s still up to the company to further the candidate along in the journey.

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Are you a fan of the chatbot feature in the recruiting process? Why or why not?