5 Predictions for Recruitment Tech in 2023
It’s going to be a tough year, here are a few things 2023 might hold for job seekers and recruiters.
The hotttest topics of tech next year will most likely feature a lot of AI. While VR is not gaining enough momentum, AI is finally “smart” enough to start playing a bigger role in our lives. Recruitment tech will benefit greatly from AI, hence the following predictions:
1. AI will write job applications
ChatGPT is proving to be a formidable player in the fresh AI tools for everyday life. Make use of it while it’s free (it is costing OpenAI a fortune to run everyday: https://metanews.com/does-chatgpt-really-cost-3m-a-day-to-run/), you have an amazing tool for creating canvas of CV, cover letter, work experience description, etc. UX is perhaps the strongest suit of ChatGPT, just ask and it shall deliver, no need to add “please” (but do add “please” if you want to be spared when SkyNet comes).
But ChatGPT isn’t the only one that can polish your writing. Plenty of tools already exist that do pretty much the same thing, albeit for a price. Bloggers are using tools like Quillbot and Copy.ai to make a living for a while now, and they have features tailored for job seekers and recruiters, too. Wonsulting, a startup by two ex-Google employees, are also rolling out AI for creating professional CV with just a few simple phrases.
What’s the catch? They are still machines. They don’t neccessarily have a sense of style. Job seekers will want to inject a bit of their own personalities into the output. Don’t just copy and paste, copy – paste and rewrite.
2. AI will also write job descriptions
Oh the frustration of talking to a recruiter who doesn’t seem to understand what they are talking about when they talk about a job you know so well. Even the most successful companies can have the worst hiring process. It is as if they never practice what they preach and treat recruitment as a second thought, letting recruiters work with the bare minimum of requirements for jobs.
Many job sites already offer job descriptions and requirements suggestions based on job title input. However, with the ever changing of technology and social fabric, many jobs are no longer what they are, and so many new jobs are popping up every year. AI is crucial for gathering, learning and making better, more adaptive suggestions for recruitement writing.
Recruiters will not have to rely on cookiecutter templates when posting jobs while worrying about not having enough knowledge to find the best candidates. Job descriptions that convert will just be a few clicks away, and better yet, your next ATS might even help you answer applicants’ tough questions about the job without having to consult the hiring managers.
3. Data-driven recruitment will go full throttle
Believe me when I say many recruiters are still not utilising the ATS at all, many hate ATS with a passion. Despite surveys showing that ATS actually bring positive changes to the hiring process, you can always find complaints from both job seekers and recruiters on LinkedIn about how they hate filling forms after sending in CV. Why? Not all ATS can perfectly parse all CV files. There are many edge cases that ordinary parsers cannot cover.
NLP and OCR are the solution machine learning is bringing to solve this problem once and for all. Any information on any CV can be parse, stored and become searchable by all relevant categories. ChatGPT and similar language models can already extract information from a paragraph of summary, and do the reverse, write comprehensible summaries for CV.
With this foundation, candidates suggestion will become massively more efficient because there will be more data for the recommender engines to consider.
4. Non-traditional recruitment platforms will continue to thrive
No-code and low-code platform are revolutionising ways software products are built. They accelerate the rate of new products, break down the technical barrier of entry into product building and make way for new ideas to rush to the market quicker. How is this relevant to recruitment?
Anyone can start a job site nowadays with a list of people looking for jobs, a no-code web builder and a web crawler (sometimes they do the crawling manually). And job sites became creative to stand out. Otta, Flexiple, Hackajob are some of the few examples of disruptive job platforms that do more than posting jobs. They focus more on the aspect of connecting recruiters and job seekers, while provide both sides with useful information to make the process simpler and effective. Another aspect these platforms are also focusing on is the salary transparency, providing jobs with clear salary range to make the guessing game less daunting and negotiations more open.
There are tons of manual work behind these platforms, due to the nature of no-code and low-code, but human aspect is inseparatable from recruitment anyway. The raise of no-code and low-code means freelance recruiters will have a lot more tools to build the pipelines. The new innovation of AI product experience will be a rocket booster to an already convenient eco system of no-code and low-code tools.
5. “Building personal brand” will become easier but more crucial
The recession has already arrived in many developed countries. It’s only going downhill from here in the next year or two. Getting a job will get more difficult (Déjà vu, I swear everyone says this every year). The recent waves of layoff from the largest companies in the world showed no one can rely on having one job for the rest of their lives.
It’s ALWAYS better for job seekers to let recruiters find them, than let their CV be lost in the sea of applications. Social networks are still relevant, and there are plenty more platforms to build your voice (Oh look, you’re here too!). If you are old enough to have lived and applied for jobs through 2008 crisis, this time it’s likely to be the same. It’s not to say job sites will become irrelevant, but throwing your CV at every job you see will become much less effective. Fret not, social platforms are becoming more convenient by including templates for everyone to get creative with their contents. LinkedIn writes messages to recruiters on users’ behalf. Since AI can write anything now, they’ll help you write your contents too.
What should you do to build your brand? Whatever you are passionate with, or can contribute to communities, or bring positive values and impacts.
When should you start investing in your personal brand? Yesterday.
* Personal portfolio might also be on their ways to replace traditional CV thanks to drag-n-drop web builders becoming more advanced. at the moment, however, this alternative format is not popular enough and will take a bit longer to become mainstream or completely replace traditional CV.
What’s your prediction for recruitment tech next year?