Technology, automation, and artificial intelligence are changing the face of recruitment. The ability to handle most hiring processes remotely is dovetailing with the shift to a distributed workforce. Companies can now source candidates, interview, manage reference checking and make an offer without ever having to be in the same room. 

However, technology can’t manage every aspect of hiring; without the human touch, the process becomes too robotic and sterile. Understanding when, where, and how to deploy technology while providing a positive candidate experience is key. While the emerging tech effect on HR processes cannot be denied, it’s critical to choose and deploy the right technology to maximize quality of hire and employee retention.

Technology Can’t Replace Human Interaction

Technology can do a great deal for your company when it comes to automation in talent acquisition and streamlining the recruitment process. However, a fully hands-off process won’t land you the candidates you need most to run a successful organization. 

Soft skills are highly in demand across almost every vertical, and if your company doesn’t display any, you won’t attract employees who possess them. Embrace technology for repetitive tasks along the recruitment process, but don’t forget you’re dealing with human beings. 

Up to 86% of employers use job interviewing techniques involving technological mediation, with a growing portion consisting of automated video interviews (AVIs). However, many recruitment specialists recommend this as a first stage process only, to be followed up with an in-person or remotely conducted one-on-one video interview as soon as possible for top candidates.

Candidates appreciate recruitment technology when it makes the hiring process easier and faster, but not when it removes all human elements and leaves them feeling like just another faceless resume. It’s critical to have one-on-one human contact with candidates at some point, to assure them that they aren’t just cogs waiting to be fed into a machine.

Crosschq can help remove unconscious bias

One area where humans sometimes fail is in recognizing and overcoming unconscious bias. Technology does have a lot to offer when it comes to taking human bias out of the equation, especially in the early phases of hiring. The key is recognizing when and where bias can be eliminated and implementing the correct technology to make it happen. The wrong technology can end up making bias that exists in data have an even worse effect.

Crosschq 360 helps reduce unconscious bias by making reference checking as equitable as possible. Each reference is asked for basic ratings across a variety of candidate data points developed by IO psychologists. The resulting report delivers a score that can be used to make more informed hiring decisions that are backed by data.

Technology Can’t Deliver Instant Employees

The perfect “instant employee” doesn’t exist. Recruitment agencies may tout their ability to find the perfect candidate for any position in record time, but the reality of the matter is that the pool of highly-qualified talent is currently small and the competition is fierce. 

Finding the right employee can be a challenge, especially when half a dozen other companies are engaged in strategic maneuvers to secure the same individual. Being able to get the employee of your choice before they fall off the market means being able to move fast and figure out what is most important to the employee to secure them (hint: it’s not always a higher salary.)

Once the right employee is identified, how fast you can get them in place is another story altogether. Depending on your onboarding process, it could take days or even weeks to bring a new hire into the fold, and months after that before they reach full productivity.

Crosschq can help you access a highly-qualified pool of available talent

Being able to tap into a pool of talent that has already opted in to being recruited can help you streamline the hiring process. Crosschq Recruit allows you to source, complete due diligence on, and extend offers to one or more candidates quickly and easily, accessing active and passive talent who are ready to make a move.

Instead of wasting valuable time crawling LinkedIn looking for potential candidates, or fielding hundreds of applications from job boards, you can skip straight to compiling a shortlist and comparing candidate reference scores. The result is more highly-skilled and motivated talent, and a faster path to onboarding and productivity.

Technology Can’t Improve Poor Recruitment Strategy

If your recruitment strategy isn’t specifically geared towards long-term employee retention, no amount of technology will be able to stop the revolving door of talent entering and leaving your organization. Likewise, your quality of hire metrics only hold weight if they are backed by clear analysis of your employees productivity from date of hire to their exit interview.

Unless you structure your retention plan around identifying the best candidates, nurturing them through continual and prolonged onboarding, and ensuring engagement and contentment, employee churn will be a simple - and costly - matter of course for your company.

Any talent acquisition technology you use to recruit, train, and engage your employees should be centered around driving positive employee experience, from the very minute they first become interested in working for your company. To achieve this, you need the right data and the ability to interpret it.

Crosschq can help provide data-driven insights

Crosschq Analytics allows you to confidently track new hires through the first year of their employment, staying in contact with them and engaging them with short pulse surveys and requests for feedback– you choose the cadence of how often you want to receive feedback. By giving employees a voice, you increase your chances of retention. 

The knowledge gained from this continual communication (and associated reporting on how your hard-won candidates are performing and assimilating) can guide you in future hiring strategies and decisions, as well as provide you with rich insights in terms of L&D. This gives your organization the opportunity to develop and leverage a data-driven approach to recruitment, with the clear goal of preventing employee attrition and improving long-term employee satisfaction. 

Are you ready to bring the right technology to bear on your recruitment processes? Contact us for a free demo and find out how Crosschq can help you streamline, automate, and enhance your hiring funnel today.