One of the areas of HR in which AI is having the most measurable impact is recruiting. And that’s not just because it’s driving down time-to-fill and speeding up candidate scheduling (though it is)—AI in recruiting is completely redefining the role of the recruiter, creating new strategic opportunities for talent professionals.
That was a major theme at this month’s IAMPHENOM conference in Philadelphia, hosted by talent intelligence platform Phenom, where talent leaders across sectors emphasized the ongoing transformative force AI is bringing to recruiting.
According to recent research from The Josh Bersin Co., about 60% of recruiters are deploying AI in their work—from sourcing to screening to interacting with candidates—dramatically reducing the amount of time spent on manual tasks. It’s a reality Ellen Page, director of talent acquisition for Franciscan Health—a nearly 20,000-person Midwest healthcare network—knows well.
Particularly in the healthcare sector, where competition for talent is at record levels, recruiting functions need to shift from pushing paper to creating connection with candidates and employees.
“We’re all about experiences now, not processes,” Page says. “We’re focused on the moments that matter.”
Tech integration is enabling that shift, taking the administrative burden off of Franciscan’s team of 32 recruiters. The “post and pray” method of the past, rife with tedious, manual steps, has transformed into a more seamless, AI-enabled process, Page says.
Now, recruiters can be less task-oriented, and more strategy-focused.
“We’re trying to get all of our recruiters to be more like consultants,” Page says. “The technology is giving time back to recruiters.”
That time can now be spent, consulting more with hiring managers, Page says. What do they need in a position? Why did the last employee leave? What does success really look like?
“Our hiring managers need consultants; they need help,” she says. “They may think they know what they want, but they knew that last time and now that employee isn’t here. Doing the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity.”
When recruiters can function as consultants, they can break those patterns, using their deep knowledge of the business and capacity to nurture relationships with candidates to bridge gaps.
This is particularly meaningful in the “absolutely chaotic” healthcare labor market, she notes. Healthcare continues to be the primary driver of American job growth, but it’s a quickly changing landscape, Page says.
In a post-pandemic world, coveted healthcare talent is asking less about retirement plans and more about flexibility, student loan repayment and mentorship, she says. Evolving expectations from candidates mean a high-touch experience can make the difference.
Page and her team have emphasized that reality, and the subsequent high value of consultant-style recruiters, during discussions on workforce planning. Finance departments, in particular, may be eager to trim recruiting functions as AI takes over tasks, she notes. But HR needs to be vocal about the changing impact recruiters can have in AI-assisted processes.
For instance, before Franciscan started with Phenom in 2023, they had about 3,000 job openings, a number that has shrunk to less than 1,000 now. Instead of reducing recruiting headcount to match req levels, Page says she highlights the new opportunities for recruiters: conducting intake sessions, developing deeper relationships with candidates, mentoring internal candidates to drive up retention.
“We didn’t have these capabilities before,” she says. “Back then, we literally could just get through the process.”
Building excitement for AI in recruiting
Grant Clifton, HR manager at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center in Wyoming, says his own recruiting team at the 2,000-employee hospital has been on a similar trajectory.
Recruiters are excited”about the opportunities they have to focus on relationships over processes, as AI integrates into their work.
“I talked to them at the beginning of our tech journey and said, ‘You’re not going to have to spend time rescheduling interviews, building email templates for hiring cooks and they said, ‘You’re telling me I can actually spend time having sourcing conversations with hiring managers and talking to candidates?’ They were so on board,” Clifton says.
Involving recruiting professionals in the AI journey will be critical as the function transforms. Author and leadership expert Simon Sinek noted in a keynote during IAMPHENOM that transformations in which leaders promise to “sweep in and fix the problem” with AI will have talent professionals deferring too much to leadership. Instead, give recruiting professionals the chance to experiment, make mistakes and see the impact on their work themselves.
“When leaders just say, ‘You go wait [for AI implementation]. We’ll figure it out and tell you,’ that creates more anxiety,” Sinek says.
There is a “massive space for experimentation” with AI in recruiting, he adds, and to make the tech’s influence “better, faster and stronger,” recruiters should be empowered to guide how the tech is redefining their function and role in a practical way.
“Let people try things out and report back,” Sinek says. “They want to know how it impacts them—not in a year or five years from now: They care about, ‘What does my Monday look like?’ ”
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