How AI talent intelligence platforms can transform HR for the better

5 min read

Bottom Line: Taking a more holistic, lifecycle based approach to talent management made possible with AI Talent Intelligence Platforms replaces siloed systems that perpetuate siloed thinking and hold back HR teams, candidates, and leadership from achieving their potential.

What separates the companies everyone wants to work for versus those with mediocre Glassdoor scores that everyone avoids? Why does one startup flourish and a competing one in the same market struggle?

I’ve researched these questions and many more as a hiring manager and team manager throughout my career. Contrary to what HR recruiters and hiring managers think, it has little to do with piling on benefits, signing bonuses and salaries. Today the most valuable candidates, those that can do 10X the quality and depth of work than their peers, want to work where their capabilities and skills get stronger, and they have a chance to grow. When that becomes part of who any company is, 10X applicants hear about it and want to join. Creating a company like that needs to be the goal of every Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) and hiring manager.

Siloed ats and hris systems perpetuate the past

Siloed HR systems create siloed thinking that protects the past and perpetuates bias. None of them can rank applicants on their capabilities and potential for a given role, improve diversity and inclusion (D&I) by removing data that triggers biases, or know what most and least motivates a high-performing, 10X applicant to move companies. AI-based Talent Intelligence Platforms, including the Platform from Eightfold, are doing each of those tasks and many more.

Winning the war for talent with outdated systems that don’t communicate with other is getting more difficult every day. The more siloed an organization’s ATS and HRIS systems are, the more they are contributing to today’s talent crisis. A recent survey by Eightfold and Harris Interactive, the Talent Intelligence and Management Report 2018 illustrates how severe the talent crisis is today and how AI is helping to close it. Key insights from the study include the following findings that reflect how siloed ATS and HRIS systems make the talent crisis even more challenging to overcome:

  • 83% of employees want a new job, yet only 53% want to change companies; still, enterprises are finding their retention programs are ineffective to keep these individuals who want a new role and not a new company.
  • 78% of CEOs and Chief Human Resource Officers say talent programs are important, but 56% say their current programs are ineffective.
  • 57% of employees say diversity and inclusion initiatives aren’t working, and 40% say their companies lack qualified diverse talent.
  • 55% of employees get unsolicited messages from recruiters weekly— and 78% say they welcome this contact.

HR’s Complacency, Not Competitors, Lose The Best Candidates & Employees

The Eightfold and Harris Interactive study, and many others like it, show the price organizations paid when they chose complacency over competing with greater intensity and data. It’s not about closing the job requisition; it is about finding that 10X applicant who will not only do excellent work – but also energize entire teams to excel.  Finding enough of those 10X-level candidates means the difference between surviving and growing as a business or stagnating.

When ATS and HRIS systems aren’t integrated and focused on hiring for capability and potential, the most mediocre aspects of HR’s talent management practices take over and lead to negative impacts:

  • 87% of CEOs and CHROs say their companies face at least one serious talent-related challenge today which is directly impacting their ability to grow
  • 47% of top talent (the 10X employees) quit within two years for another opportunity that will enable them to grow and make the most of their potential.
  • 28% of open roles will not be filled, making companies less able to deliver shareholder value in the years ahead, stalling growth and hurting competitive position.
  • The longer HR stays complacent and doesn’t integrate systems, the tougher it becomes to find the talent the company needs to grow. When a 73% majority of companies have difficulty finding talent, and 66% struggle to keep the talent, it’s a sure sign that the systems HR is running on aren’t delivering the value they need to. The following graphic from the study shows the high cost of doing nothing.

Why talent management needs an ai platform, not siloed apps, to succeed

It’s time for HR to embrace the future of talent management and let go of the past. Taking on the talent crisis and finding candidates with the capabilities and potential to help their organizations grow needs to take priority. The more siloed a system is, the more it constrains HR, hiring managers, and the entire company from seeing how they can improve talent management and D&I, and create a better culture.

Data and the insights it makes possible through AI and machine learning are freeing up HR departments, hiring managers, and senior management to focus on improving candidates’ experiences too. An AI Talent Intelligence Platform relies on supervised and unsupervised machine learning to find patterns for each candidate, finding their unique capabilities and strengths for each role. Instead of a dispersed, siloed series of ATS and HRIS systems, Talent Intelligence Platforms unlock the value of legacy data and bring it into a context HR and hiring managers can use today. 

Conclusion

Today’s talent crisis is a formidable challenge for any organization to deal with as it looks to recruit the best possible candidates. By taking a data-driven approach to the talent crisis, recruiters and hiring managers can save themselves thousands of hours a year of looking through the massive amount of resumes ATS and HRIS systems collect. A far better approach is to have machine learning, and AI algorithms find those candidates with the best capabilities match. The bottom line is that AI Talent Intelligence Platforms offer HR, hiring managers, and senior management acuity of insight, intelligence, and speed across all of talent management. HR recruiters and hiring managers spend less time screening, find more top candidates, and lower the cost of hire, all while removing bias from hiring decisions.

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