AI in recruitment ? It’s no secret that AI significantly impacts the financial landscape. More than 91% of financial service companies use artificial intelligence to augment certain processes or assess their potential impact on their organisation.
One area where AI holds significant potential is in HR. Used correctly, machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision tools can help companies create stronger job descriptions, screen candidates more effectively, and improve onboarding experiences.
The key to success is finding the right balance. While AI has a lot of potential, it can still introduce a range of issues to recruitment processes, from a higher risk of bias to the threat of job displacement.
Here’s everything you need to know about the benefits and challenges of AI in the financial recruitment process.
AI in Candidate Sourcing: Optimising Talent Acquisition
Sourcing the right talent has become an increasingly complex challenge for finance teams as skill shortages increase. To attract top professionals to their companies, finance leaders need stronger job posts, better employer brands, and more effective ways to source candidates from diverse environments.
AI has the potential to revolutionise candidate sourcing in various ways. First, AI solutions can analyse successful job listings (those with the highest engagement levels) and compare them to job posts created by a finance company, offering suggestions on optimising each listing.
On a broader scale, the machine learning capabilities built into AI and these tools’ ability to examine historical data make them excellent at predicting potential candidate success. AI can analyse everything from a candidate’s skills and personality traits to their ability to thrive in a specific company culture, increasing an organisation’s chances of making the right hiring decisions.
While 72% of recruiters consider AI valuable for candidate sourcing, these tools have some limitations. AI can help you forecast hiring needs and streamline hiring decisions, but it can also easily miss valuable candidates crucial to your company’s future growth. Combining human expertise and AI is often essential to the best talent acquisition strategies.
AI in Finance Candidate Resume Screening and Shortlisting
Relying on insights gathered from CVs alone can be dangerous when hiring in the finance industry. Soft skills and characteristics not always evident in CVs and cover letters can be crucial indicators of a candidate’s success in a role.
However, reviewing CVs can still offer companies an effective way to sort through and shortlist candidates based on essential skills and credentials. For instance, if you’re hiring an accountant for your team, AI can help you rapidly identify all applicants with the right accounting certifications.
AI tools, integrated with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), rapidly extract and categorize valuable information about work experience, education, and skills from CVs. AI can then compare each candidate’s skills to job requirements, ranking them based on their potential fit.
This leads to a more efficient screening process and can assist businesses with avoiding bias. AI can be programmed to ignore demographic information and irrelevant characteristics, like a person’s age or where they come from.
Still, AI systems do need to be trained carefully to ensure that other biases don’t creep into the ranking process. For instance, an AI system trained to evaluate candidates based on descriptions of previous employees in the same role can inadvertently demonstrate bias, particularly when a company has hired employees with similar characteristics.
AI in Background Checks and Reference Verification
Building on AI’s potential for enhancing screening efficiency, intelligent tools can also be extremely valuable for automating background checks and verifying references. First, intelligent apps can scan various data sources for potential red flags. For instance, they might analyse social media accounts and a candidate’s online presence alongside their resume.
They can also search through criminal records, leveraging integrations with real-time databases to help companies ensure they’re hiring trustworthy financial candidates. Innovative solutions can even help businesses authenticate the candidates they’re speaking to.
AI tools with computer vision can check the authenticity of documents like passports and driver’s licenses. They can also leverage biometric data to grant access to new employee accounts. AI bots can also automatically send messages or emails to references, asking specific questions about a candidate based on the role to be filled.
Of course, there are some challenges to overcome here, too. For instance, companies need to ensure they adhere to compliance rules when collecting data about candidates and acquiring permission from individuals to use their data.
AI-Powered Financial Candidate Assessment
Since CVs and CVs only offer a limited view of a candidate’s potential to thrive in a role, many companies are exploring new ways to analyse and assess potential employees. Strategies like psychometric testing can help identify candidates who deliver the most “cultural add” to a company based on shared values and important attributes.
Skill testing can offer companies a way to validate the technical abilities of financial team members and soft skills like problem-solving abilities. AI-powered solutions can help organisations collect more in-depth information from these assessments. Based on test insights, they can automatically score a candidate’s suitability for a role.
AI can even infer personality traits from different data sources, such as what a candidate posts on social media and what they share in an interview. Some companies even use AI in video screening sessions to analyse speech patterns, word choice and facial expressions for deeper insights into a candidate’s personality.
Again, all of these tools are incredibly useful. Harvard Business Review studies even found companies that use AI in the hiring process are 46% more likely to make better hiring decisions. However, AI tools can still make mistakes, inferring the wrong connections between expressions, tone of voice, and other factors. That’s why companies must combine AI insights with genuine human judgment.
Chatbots and Virtual Assistants in Recruitment
Chatbots and virtual assistants are two of the most common examples of companies leveraging AI to connect and communicate with others. Business leaders in finance usually see chatbots as crucial tools for customer service. They can answer common questions about services and even deliver guidance and recommendations to customers.
However, chatbots can also positively impact the candidate experience in recruitment. Candidate experience is increasingly essential to connecting with talent in a skills-short industry. One of the biggest factors that affects how candidates feel about a company is how effectively that firm communicates with them throughout the process.
Bots can integrate with HR team calendars and ATS systems and suggest relevant interview times that suit the company and the candidate. Plus, these tools can request feedback from candidates throughout the recruitment experience, providing companies with valuable insights into which factors affect engagement or discourage candidates from accepting a role.
The important thing to remember here is that chatbots still can’t show empathy or emotion in the same way as human beings, so they shouldn’t be used for every form of candidate interaction. Plus, since they can make mistakes, it’s important to continuously assess and optimise your bots.
AI in Onboarding and Early Engagement
Beyond enhancing the candidate experience, AI can also help finance companies enhance the early stages of the overall employee experience. The right onboarding strategy greatly affects your chances of engaging and retaining talent.
With AI, you can use the data you gather about your new candidates to gain insights into personalising the onboarding process to their specific needs. AI tools like Enboarder can automatically adjust onboarding content based on learning style, role, and experience.
Based on intelligent assessments of your candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, you can identify skill gaps to tackle with longer-term development programs. AI can even power more advanced training strategies. Bots can offer real-time feedback as employees complete online courses. They can also act as virtual guides in virtual and augmented reality apps.
AI solutions can automatically track employee progress, giving managers real-time views into how their team members develop in the workplace.
The Future of AI in Finance Recruitment
Artificial intelligence can significantly impact various parts of the recruitment process, from candidate sourcing and screening to onboarding and engagement. As AI solutions become more advanced, with state-of-the-art algorithms and new features, the potential for AI in recruitment will continue to grow.
However, as powerful as AI can be, it’s not foolproof. Companies embracing AI for recruitment must ensure they’re aware of the risks and implement strategies to protect data, mitigate bias, and maintain the human touch in the recruitment journey.
The key to future hiring success will be finding the right balance between AI-powered augmentation and human expertise.
Thanks
Rachel Mitson
About Rebus Financial Recruitment
Rebus Financial Recruitment provides a specialist and focused recruitment service to its customers, ranging from various organisations, including SMEs, to large PLCs.
We strive to offer both the client and candidate a seamless recruitment experience. Using our expertise, we get to the heart of employer and employee needs, and, in doing so, we match the two perfectly.
To learn more, contact one of our team members today or call us at 01282 930930.
