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You’ve Seen the Epic Google Video. Is This the Future of Recruiting?

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May 10, 2018
This article is part of a series called Opinion.

Many of you have seen the video (see below) of Google Assistant booking a haircut and reserving a table at a small, hip restaurant. It’s truly amazing of how far in technology we have come. For those of you in recruiting, I’m sure you are wondering: How long before Google Assistant enters the recruiting space and replaces me or my team?

There is definitely an opportunity in scheduling, background checks, and onboarding. But do full-life cycle recruiters have to start worrying about their jobs? Let’s look at the tasks that require a human, and also look at this from an ethics standpoint.

Differentiating between a good candidate and a not-desired candidate a lot of the time comes down to the skills listed on the resume, work experience, and how they perform on the phone interview. Companies are starting to skip phone interviews and replace them with assessments for their lower-paying jobs, but I haven’t seen that shift for any manager and above positions. With the scarcity of talent out there, I can’t see companies wanting to put their candidate experience in the hands of Google Assistant, especially for executive and the truly hard-to-find skills out there. Recruiters are always going to be needed for the relationship piece of showcasing company selling points to the candidate … “Why you want to work here” and “What differentiates us from others? “

Also, I’m not sure you would be comfortable giving your salary expectations to a computer. So, for all of the tasks like salary negotiation, making offers, and selling candidates on the company, I don’t see Google Assistant or AI replacing humans.

The other issue is the candidate experience piece of it. I guess if you were told, “This is Google Assistant on behalf of XYZ company calling you for our scheduled phone interview,” then you would know if you were talking to a non-human. But I think a lot of people would be weirded out by this and not feel comfortable doing a phone interview with a computer. Would the candidates feel like the company recruiting them is trying to save a dime by using a computer instead of a person for phone interviews? In the customer-support industry, offshoring had a negative connotation for a while.

At the Brady house, my four kids are all using Siri and Alexa to play songs and give us answers to basic questions or trivia, but we use it more as entertainment and a fast way to find data. I’m not sure we would want robots teaching our kids full time, because you would be concerned where the data is coming from.

Maybe I’m wrong. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. I’m still waiting for my car to fly, to eat a pill substitute for dinner, and to travel in time like Marty McFly. What do you think? Comment below or on Facebook.

This article is part of a series called Opinion.
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