Today’s guest blog is courtesy of Monster. Chris Cho, CPO at Monster, recently shared his insights with HRTalk on major trends shaping the recruitment technology landscape, employer branding and AI-powered recruitment. HRTalk is an interview series conducted by HR Technologist, the world’s leading source of HR technology news, research, and expert views. Monster is an NPAworldwide Alliance Partner.
The war for talent is raging and you might just win if you have recruitment technology by your side.
What trends have you seen in recruitment technology and how specifically is Monster reacting to them?
This is one of the tightest labor markets we’ve seen in recent years – maybe even decades. The economy is strong and employment numbers indicate consistent, solid job growth. At the same time, we’ve got mismatches between talent and openings: We see high-skill fields like healthcare and technology struggling to fill openings. And other fields where there is a surplus of talent.
Part of matching is helping our customers reach passive qualified talent where they are—our social job ads, for example, allow you to access people in a field via platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Our integration with Google allows people to find our ads even when they’re in search mode on that platform.
Do you see the role of external recruiters shrinking as recruiting technology attains more maturity?
The concern that technology will take over for humans is legitimate, but I don’t think it will happen in our lifetime. There are some roles that could be reduced as the technology advances; however, it’s important to remember that the value hiring managers and recruiters provide is making human connections with candidates. Technology is more likely to push recruiters into differentiating themselves versus replacing them. The human elements of their job are part of what makes them so valuable and irreplaceable.
Artificial intelligence is a buzzword in HR, and you being at the intersection of technology and HR, how do you look to Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, etc.?
AI is capable of shrinking the time you spend on repeatable, menial, and mundane activities within sourcing, searching, and engaging job seekers. However, the technology doesn’t currently play a huge role in HR, as it’s still in its infancy of being implemented in meaningful ways that make a direct impact. What you frequently see today are things like chatbots—which serve an important purpose, but are often not true AI.
What questions are your users asking you? How is that impacting your platform’s roadmap? Are there any new features or upcoming upgrades that you’re excited about and would like to give us a sneak peek into?
We’re constantly interacting with our users, gathering feedback and looking for ways to improve the user experience—for both seekers and employers. Some of the common frustrations we heard include the lack of transparency (or response) from recruiters, how long it takes to apply to jobs, and a lack of understanding on where to even begin. Some recent changes we implemented include:
- Updating search algorithms and results to ensure that we’re matching the right people to the right jobs.
- Removing ads from search results to help remove an added layer of friction.
- Implementing a two-panel combined job search and job view experience to create a streamlined experience.
- Relaunching our free resume assessment tool that uses a proprietary smart resume-scanning technology that relies on both machine learning and human review.
But, this is just the beginning. We want to take the job search to the next level and we’ll continue to look for ways to improve the process moving forward. Stay tuned!
