Artificial intelligence (AI) mimics human performance to understand complex content. The rise and increased focus on artificial intelligence has created a sharp demand for talent who can create and work with this new technology. In addition, artificial intelligence has been used to improve hiring decisions by assessing candidates’ competencies, skills, and personalities. To remain informed, study the impacts of artificial intelligence and determine strategies to expand the talent pool for quality candidates.

Review the following strategies for utilizing artificial intelligence:

• Innovative Tools
  • The most innovative tools being integrated into the hiring process today are chatbots and listening tools. Chatbots respond to spoken or written word through natural-language processing. Listening tools gather information on morale and engagement from internal and external communication such as surveys, and social posts and comments.
• Role Transformation
  • With the integration of artificial intelligence, roles, whether tech-related or not, can be changed in four ways: eliminated, simplified, unchanged, or expanded. When looking to fill artificial intelligence-related positions, determine if job descriptions are too complex and unrealistic, evaluate the necessary skill requirements, analyze the role, and uncover trade-offs. 
• Alternative Sources of Talent
  • Pivoting to alternative sources of talent for critical skills like geographic location and university collaboration will allow you a larger talent pool to fill a niche role. In addition, artificial intelligence can be used to identify, scale, and manage talent more accurately than typical methods.
• Process Simplification
  • A variety of processes can and will be phased out to artificial intelligence. Creating an inventory of these processes can set the foundation for tasks that remain after automation.
• Human Connectedness
  • As artificial intelligence streamlines tasks and processes done by people, focusing on human-centered skills for human-based positions can grow the business in new ways, like better customer experience through interpersonal communication, engaged associates through effective leadership, and innovative solutions through creative thinking.

Competition for talent and the evolution of skills and roles are two main factors that negatively affect talent acquisition. For a more agile recruiting operating model, you can embed talent analytics into your talent strategy to address pipeline challenges in succession planning, gain deeper insight of candidates, and understand individual employee preferences.

Consider the following steps to using talent analytics for recruiting:

• Understand how talent drives current and future business strategy.
• Continuously plan and resource talent through bottom-up hiring projections.
• Specialize in talent and task segments to create enterprise value.
• Leverage predictive talent analytics to determine business needs.
• Study internal and external labor markets on recruitment, engagement, and retention trends to create deep actionable insights.  
• Gain buy-in for the recommended actions and ultimately drive adoption of those actions.

Having the data is not enough to leverage its power to make educated decisions. Having data insights, however, draws conclusions from your data to determine business needs and compel the business into action, whether that’s to buy, find, move, or develop talent. 

Collection

• Understand which types of data to collect to generate the insights you need. 
• Find easy ways to gather labor market data. 
• Access publicly available data. 

Interpretation

• Understand the audience (whom you will present), issue (problem trying to solve), and purpose (inform, convince, or drive action).
• Demonstrate the affect that data has on your strategy. 
• Select compelling graphics or visualization that tells the story most effectively.  
• Verify the data and the presentation and how it relates to the business needs. 

Influence 

• Develop a strategy in a simple, logical way. 
• Demonstrate the implications of your analysis. 
• Create a tangible action plan.

Once you’ve analyzed your data for insights, creating an action plan can help you recalibrate skills in talent strategy, challenge prioritized business lines, and identify new talent competitors. 

The following data can provide insights for your talent strategy:

• Talent Supply
  • Data on talent availability allows you to discover the core roles and evolving and emerging skills in the market. It’ll determine the prevalence of the skill set in the industry and location, level of talent mobility, level of demand for skill set, community population, and number of talent competitors in the industry.
• Wage Inflation
  • The data from talent supply can be combined with wage inflation (current and future cost) by role and city. This helps you avoid the wrong locations and helps you better manage your budgets.
• Competitor Hiring 
  • To stay on the cutting edge of your business strategy, you can monitor the roles and skills that your competitors are hiring for, where they are hiring, and which customers they might focus on. You should also know your competitors’ talent. To gauge your competitive position, consider data on compensation, location, work-life balance, development opportunities, and culture.
• Location Favorability 
  • To properly choose where to locate certain roles, you must collect data on talent supply, cost, demand, and wage inflation, as location depends on all interdependently.  
• Candidate Enticements 
  • Data can show you what is most likely to entice your target talent. Knowing these factors can tell you what to emphasize in your job descriptions and outreach to convince sought-after candidates to leave their current positions and join the enterprise. You might have to provide enticements beyond monetary compensation and benefits to include factors such as work-life balance, development opportunities, and even seniority or job title.