So often we see that Artifical Intelligence (AI) is the answer.
But like all "new" innovation it's "old tech" with something tagged on, in this case, AI.
The IKettle, is just a kettle. You boil water in the same way, you just control the boiling of the water from the app. This isn't new or transformational.
Transformation would be using a "new" invention to boil water.
The same with AI in recruitment, the use of AI at the moment is layered on old processes.
AI helps use sift through CVs quicker! Really? This is not transformation.
AI helps us to pre-screen applicants! Really? This is not transformation.
Can you see where I am going with this?
The iPhone was transformational. We now have inventions such as Snapchat and TikTok that didn't exist before the iPhone and wouldn't exist without it.
Let's go back to recruitment.
The problem with getting the best talent, is that the current processes don't get you access to the best talent. The best talent is working and happy in their work.
When you advertise roles, you get people looking for work.
So how do you change this? Not with AI, but with social.
Activate, the people in Human Resources (HR) to be on social. Everybody should have a personal brand, everybody should have a strong network, everybody should have and share insightful content.
This will pull into you the best talent.
Better still, empower all the employees to do this.
Note: This is NOT employee advocacy. Employee advocacy is getting employees to share marketing's corporate content, that everybody ignores on all the other channels.
Social Media Business Case
Like Health and Safety, Diversity and Inclusion, Sexual Harassment, etc, Leaders can no longer hide from the fact that employees use social media. A business now needs to recognise this and rather hide from it and pretend it does not exist, they have to embrace it and proactively support it.
If we look at Simon Kemp's Q4 Digital Snapshot
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2019-q4-global-digital-statshot
There are 3.75 Billion people in the world active on social media. Your staff are on it, your alumni are on it and your future employees are on it, your prospects are on it and your customers are on it.
So here's a thing.
Why don't we start using social? Why don't empower people to use it and use it for our own advantage?
How do I mean?
We can use social to support maternity returners, make them feel welcome and get them contributing quicker. In fact we can use social to enhance the employee experience across the business, supporting new starters enabling them to contribute faster. We can also use it to get salespeople to contribute faster. This, often is a game changer and the business case for this change in business.
Empowering your staff on social will also enable you to get access to the talent faster. It will probably even reduce the amount you spend on recruiters and job adverts. It might even make you the employer of choice in your industry. This again is often a business case, based on the savings.
But emphasising the employee experience, social is often a driver to help retain employees and impacting on the recruitment process.
We can use it to get more customers. In terms of “value” we reckon that each salesperson can get an additional meeting per-week, assuming a 1 in 4 close rate, 10 months a year (let’s keep the maths simple and nothing really happens in August and December) so that’s an additional 10 deals a year. If you find out what the average deal size is, multiply that by 10 and the number of sales people and you have a “Value”.
For example; 10 salespeople, with an average deal size of $50,000 would be able to generate $5 million.
Finally we would expect a 25% increase in employee efficiency in using social. That's 25% more employees for free! Again, another business case.
As a business leader you could increase efficiency, reduce costs, reduce the cost of recruitment, increase retention, increase revenue and increase the general well being of employees.
But there is something better ...
The only thing that companies have today that is unique is their people / employees. Their skills, experiences all are unique.
These employees are connected to their family and friends, people who love and trust them. How about if we motivated your staff to share authentic, insightful and educational content. They will share it with a network that loves them.
We demonstrated this recently when we were in Singapore. Their cellular network Singtel has 35,000 followers on Twitter, which is good.
Not when you find out they have 25,000 employees and 4 million customers. In fact more people ignore them, than follow them.
What happens if we empower 10% of the employees and they all have 100 followers, this gives the business a reach of 250,000. Already more than the current corporate account.
If we could empower 50% of employees and they have 500 connections like the average person on LinkedIn. This gives the business a reach of 6.25 million. Add to that the connections love the people and are more likely to share the connect. You have here a clear business case.
Beware, we are told. Automation is coming, pant the breathless pundits warning of A.I.-induced job loss. Ratcheting up the fear meter, presidential candidate Andrew Yang recently sounded the alarm for unprecedented employment gutting — not just among blue-collar professions, but white-collar jobs, too. Meanwhile, renowned studies paint a gloomy picture, one in which rapid A. advances kneecap our middle-class dreams, sapping the hopes of young people who are left to wonder: Will there be a job for me when I graduate?
