I was a keynote at the Recruitment Consulting & Staffing Association conference in Melbourne this week, and something really struck me.
It was awesome to return to the Recruitment Industry as a proud alumni, and to reconnect with some amazing folks that I worked with over 20 years ago.
But the conversation that really struck me concerned the waning art of Influence and the rising mania for AI.
Recruitment’s primary lever is Influence. Yet AI is more on their minds.
I get it – especially in Recruitment
Recruiters are currently receiving hundreds of AI-written applications for every job, a phenomenon impacting inhouse recruiters as much as agencies. So why not fight fire with fire – AI recruiters reviewing AI applications. It makes perfect sense.
The wrinkle for me is that AI genericises everything.
When generic Application meets generic Recruiter review what hiring outcomes are we going to get? Brilliant talent choices or generic ones?
Enhancing Recruiter Influence is the only antidote for this and should be applied through two specific influencing lenses:
- Building trust. Earning candidate and client trust is harder than ever according to Edelman. Since AI is not trusted with critical decisions like your next hire or your next job, Recruiters must become that trusted adviser.
- Having real insight into what will drive the decisions of candidates and clients is becoming an art form. It’s rare indeed when a candidate or a client makes a choice based exclusively on the criteria (or the prompt?) they gave their Recruiter. AI doesn’t generate truly intuitive insights yet – but Recruiters asking the right questions will always spot what really lights someone up, even if they don’t know it themselves.
The primary barrier to more Influence – experienced by every profession globally – is Time. We don’t have enough of it.
If we can leverage AI to give us Time, and leverage Humans to give us Influence, then we have this nailed. And by ‘we’ I don’t just mean recruiters!
Do you think we are getting there?
I’d genuinely love to hear what you’re seeing in your own organisation or industry right now, please drop me a line here for a chat.
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Rebecca is Australia’s pre-eminent advocate for B-suite leadership – the expert in developing hi-impact B-Suite leadership at both a team and individual level.
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