3 examples of practical uses of chatbots in recruitment

What exactly is a chatbot?  

A chatbot is a program designed to automatically communicate with website visitors. In recent years, it has become very popular in the field of customer support and is utilized throughout the recruitment process. The operator is replaced by artificial intelligence that recognizes questions based on keywords—and then generates responses accordingly. 

TIP! Read our tips on how to effectively publish job advertisements on social networks.

Examples of chatbot functions in HR

Statistics published on the Userlike portal for the year 2021 showed that over 80% of users have encountered and used chatbots during their experiences on the Internet. For the HR field, which is mostly focused on communication with candidates, this tool has a huge benefit because it helps to "automate" a number of repetitive tasks. Most repetitive tasks can also be delegated to them. This will free up time for recruiters to focus on more personal contact with the relevant candidates.

In today's article, we have prepared 3 examples of how to use chatbots effectively in recruitment:

1. Acquiring new candidates

Try to deploy chatbot directly to your career site. Suppose the undecided potential candidate would like to know more about your company, its benefits, and job opportunities within the company. Instead of finding this information through a complex and laborious process on both ends, the candidate can start a conversation through chat—more precisely through chatbot.

Through a tree conversation, chatbot will provide all the information that interests the candidate, or sometimes immediately offer him a suitable job opportunity. At the same time, chatbot can obtain contact details from the candidate and send any response directly to a recruitment application, such as Datacruit ATS, which effectively expands your talent pool. 

TIP: If you would like to improve in your recruitment practice, don't forget to read our article on how to be an effective recruiter.

2. Automate prescreening

With a large number of candidates, the chatbot is a good means of parsing the crowd and reducing unsuitable candidates. It can request basic information from candidates, including contact details, previous experience, knowledge, start date, and working time requirements.

Some of this information may be considered K.O. criteria for recruitment. Meeting this criteria means that the candidate excludes himself from the process and the chatbot either rejects him immediately or directs him, for example, to a general registration in the database in case a suitable job opportunity arises for him in the future. Of course, the candidate is also allowed to enter a CV, cover letter, or other necessary documents directly through the chatbot. 

Chatbot can even screen candidates by testing basic skills. For example, if you require knowledge of a language, you can test proficiency in that language by requesting a translation of a specific phrase. Alternatively, you can create a word problem to see how the candidate performs in terms of mathematical and logical thinking.

3. Link it to the calendar

Chatbot can also connect with the calendar, which will come in handy for those who actively use the calendar to keep track of their schedule. If you belong to this set of users, you will enjoy chatbot's ability to evaluate and optimize your free time. The calendar link allows you to schedule dates and times of interviews with candidates, among other events. These events are then displayed directly in your calendar.

TIP! Also read how candidates' satisfaction with recruitment can be monitored and measured.

The efficiency of chatbots not only helps recruiters, but also benefits candidates. Ultimately, they are the ones who come into contact with the chatbots. The speed of answering questions at any time of the day, so-called 24/7 availability, is a significant added value that cannot be guaranteed in normal communication.