Artificial intelligence has an impact on all industries across the world, including the field of recruitment. More than 40% of all global MNCs are banking on AI-based software and tools to enhance their recruitment process. However, let us address the elephant in the room – will AI recruitment tools replace executive search consultants? Are these tools smarter than the experts with years of commerical and recruitment experience? The answer is an absolute ‘NO’.

Technology has always complemented human activities, and AI is no exception. We should not stay away from AI, but rather embrace it and adopt it to make lives easier. AI has numerous applications in the field of executive search services and can definitely enhance our services, however; it is not a silver bullet. Hence, there would always be certain activities that would require the human brain to extrapolate information, since AI tools cannot understand the nuances of a project like a experienced executive recruitment consultant.

More than 60% of recruiters are using AI tools to accelerate the process or enhance basic research activities. Some of the potential uses can include: 

• Preparing job descriptions for different jobs using gender-neutral and unbiased language

• Improving emails and reachouts to potential candidates

• Planning the scheduling of interviews and meetings

These are not exhaustive cases. The point is AI can be used in areas where there is a scope for automating repeated tasks or reducing human efforts and, hence accelerating the process. But the word out there is ‘cautious optimism’ – taking everything that AI generates Verbatim. Do not utilize the algorithms blindly because they can generate false or outdated information, have a lot of biases involved in their results, or might even have privacy and security threats.

Having said that, there are certain areas where AI cannot replace executive recruitment consultants. Let us explore some of them:

• Creative thinking: If tasks require out-of-the-box thinking then you need human experts. AI can only assist you or give you directional guidance, but it cannot think creatively and come up with transformational ideas.

• Engage meaningfully with candidates: AI can come up with email templates or suggestive interview questions, but it cannot replace an expert when it comes to meaningful connections. It would not be able to comprehend human emotions, cultural nuances, and situational requirements while connecting with candidates or conducting an interview.

• Completely eliminate biases: AI would generate results based on its training data. If you feed data that shows that historically men have been recruited for data operator jobs, then it would screen out or eliminate women from its search results. Such biases or skewed responses are very common, and one cannot eliminate biases from an AI algorithm.

• Make informed decisions: While AI can assist finding the right direction, it cannot make decisions for you. It can share information, but the informed decision would come from an experienced executive search consultant.

In the end, we should remember that AI is a  tool, a piece of technology – the choice of how it gets deployed is still in the hands of a human being. To know more about our services like executive search management consulting, leadership coaching and professional hiring, reach out to us at www.taplowgroup.com