AI is helping talent acquisition evolve beyond the “Amazon fulfillment center of people”

Good news for people who think that there could be a better way to find and recruit new hires (so, basically everyone): New research reveals that AI is delivering in recruiting by transforming talent acquisition (TA) into a new more strategic and tactical role for high-performing firms.

The report from the Josh Bersin Company outlines how TA pros are changing the way talent is recruited and requisitions are delivered, to the tune of faster times to fill, stronger matches between candidates and roles, and improved insights on how to secure said talent. The Josh Bersin Company produced the research with HR strategy group AMS, and released it last week at the HR Technology conference in Las Vegas.

The hiring landscape reveals growing demand for new “high-precision” AI tools that assist in the TA process, from recruitment, assessment, and interviewing, to hiring and beyond.

“This idea of precision talent acquisition is almost the perfect word that describes where this is all going,” Bersin told HR Brew, adding that the tools being developed and available for talent teams now offer insights on broad sets of data that can better advise matches between roles and candidates.

With talent data and AI-powered workforce tools, companies can better understand their needs and the different ways those needs can be met, whether by new hires or internal candidates or something else all together, and better connect individual siloed hiring managers across organizations.

“Because it has more automation and more data, the function is getting more strategic,” Bersin said.

New AI in recruiting isn’t just solving specific isolated issues along each step of the hiring process—it’s reshaping the entire infrastructure and changing how companies interact with and understand their own talent.

Bersin said CHROs and HR leaders need to make the case to the C-suite that when headcount decisions are under consideration, the talent team, and their data-informed insights, can help deliver that precision in strategy.

Armed with robust talent data and AI tools, TA teams, he contends, are more than the “Amazon fulfillment center for people.”