In recruitment, everything starts with a conversation

In recent years, technology has helped the recruitment industry grow exponentially in ways that give more power to recruiters. One such marvel is the chatbot, so good that if someone explained the concept to us a decade ago, we’d call them crazy.

We come across chatbots in our everyday lives, for example, when we’re buying a flight ticket, reporting a bug in an app, or ordering clothes online. But they also play an invaluable role in recruitment. This blog takes a brief look at how chatbots got their start and how they affect your hiring metrics.

ELIZA: The prototype

ELIZA, the first chatbot ever created by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966, was meant to be a parody. Although ELIZA didn’t use advanced algorithms like today’s chatbots, it built a strong foundation for the future. It could recognize clue words or phrases in the user’s input and move the conversation forward by replying with a pre-programmed response. This created an illusion of understanding between the user and the program.

After ELIZA came multiple other iterations that helped us understand all the ways chatbots could be used and work to create more intuitive and comprehensive chatbot programs. Here are some of the most important breakthroughs that have been made in chatbot programming since ELIZA in 1966.

Chatbots in recruitment

As social media started evolving and expanding rapidly, there was a boom in chatbot usage. Recruiters gravitated towards online solutions now that they could expand their talent pool with millions of new candidates. To keep up with the massive inflow of resumes, they needed a way to automate candidate engagement.

Meanwhile, chatbots became the preferred tool to manage online engagement, and there were plenty of success stories of chatbots being used in the customer service, marketing, advertising, and entertainment industries.

For recruiters, chatbots focused on automating monotonous tasks such as applicant screening, interview scheduling, and following up with candidates, giving recruiters more free time to focus on reducing their time-to-hire rates and improving the overall candidate experience. As a reliable method of automation and information sourcing, chatbots started taking over cloud-based recruitment software. Today’s chatbots can analyze any past conversations you’ve had with them to better predict your behavior and assist you accordingly.

Zia: Recruit’s AI Assistant

The way you communicate with a candidate can make or break their opinion of your organization. We have come up with a solution that will benefit both you, the recruiter and your candidates. Introducing Zoho Recruit’s Chatbot: Zia. As your personal AI assistant, Zia works in synergy with Zoho Recruit’s Career Site to keep candidates updated on job availability and help them track their job applications.

Find the ideal fit for your jobs

Zia understands candidates as humans with career profiles instead of a string of keywords. While conversing with candidates, Zia asks for more details about their work experience, previous company information, and more, and that data gets automatically populated into your system.

This allows Zia to find “the ideal job” for every candidate by matching their experiences, skills, and proficiencies with the job’s requirements and grading them accordingly. As a result, candidates will only be shown job openings that fit their profile. This significantly reduces the number of junk applications you receive.

Build a diverse talent pool

As a recruiter, it’s essential to streamline your hiring process and make it candidate-friendly. Zia understands this and registers candidates automatically to your Candidate Portal. Being optimized for mobile browsers, Zia can help you grow your talent pool passively by recording and storing candidate data with their consent. Zia rates and screens the candidate’s profile and creates a record in your Zoho Recruit account.

Improve your candidate experience

 Candidates often get overwhelmed by the sheer number of jobs they are eligible for and struggle to manage their applications manually.  They also need to keep track of the information they are providing in each app. Zia makes their lives easier by providing them with a view that has a list of all the jobs they have applied for.

They say a good deal is where both parties involved feel like they won. Chatbots are an organized and user-friendly way to automate engagement for recruiters. On the other hand, they are also used to reliably streamline a candidate’s job search. It’s a win-win! Want to learn more? Check out Zoho Recruit’s chatbot.

If you’re looking for a quality ATS to improve your hiring process, take Zoho Recruit for a spin!

Feedback or suggestions? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us at support@zohorecruit.com.