For any organisation to succeed, its workforce must be highly skilled, motivated, and effective. But as the world of work evolves and new skills and technologies gain mainstream importance, hiring the right people is proving to be tougher than ever before. To address this, it is critical that organisations leverage the power of evolving tech, especially AI, in their pursuit of crafting a skilled workforce. By transforming their recruitment journey, not only can companies ensure that the right person gets the right seat, but they can do so quickly, efficiently, and in a cost-effective manner. 

To better understand how recruitment is transforming and the effect it is set to have on talent acquisition, People Matters exclusively spoke to Anil Agarwal, CEO and co-founder of InCruiter, a rapidly growing startup that is building hiring solutions for the next billions. 

Here are some excerpts from the interview: 

What are the top challenges that organisations today are facing when trying to create a highly skilled and motivated workforce?

Organisations today grapple with several challenges in developing a highly-skilled and motivated workforce. Slow interview processes can lead to a 29% higher chance of losing top talent, while a lack of subject matter experts in the recruitment process can impact hiring quality, according to 84% of HR leaders. 

Additionally, delayed feedback, with 47% of job seekers losing interest if they don't receive feedback within two weeks, and low conversion rates from interview to hire, averaging around 25%, all contribute to workforce development hurdles. These challenges not only hinder talent acquisition but also have financial implications, emphasising the importance of addressing them for organisational success. 

Hiring the right talent with the right skill set for the right job is critical. How can companies leverage technology to make hiring decisions that work for them? And what impact does the adoption of new technology have on the overall candidate experience?

To make the right hiring decisions, companies can leverage technology in several ways. AI tools match job descriptions to CVs, streamlining initial screening. AI-driven video interviews help efficiently screen candidates, which is especially helpful for organisations that opt for mass recruitment. Further, AI-generated feedback reports ensure objectivity and data-driven decisions. This reduces time-to-hire, saves costs and helps secure top talent in today’s dynamic and competitive market. 

AI interview software enhances the candidate experience significantly during the recruitment process. It offers efficiency, consistency, quicker feedback, and reduced bias, resulting in a smoother and fairer recruitment journey, ultimately benefiting candidates. Using AI interview software helps mitigate the coordination issues between interviewers and candidates. This makes the entire interview process seamless, thus improving candidate experience. 

In today’s fast-evolving world of work, why do you think it is important for organisations to look beyond the traditional interviewing methods and move towards AI interview software? 

In today's fast-paced work environment, organisations must adopt AI interview software, a good example is InCruiter's IncBot. AI interview software helps streamline hiring with efficient talent screening through A-based video interviews, reducing hiring time by 75% and cutting costs by 80%. IncBot further offers efficient, human-free interviews and provides detailed feedback reports, enabling quicker, data-driven HR decisions. Embracing AI interview software is essential for staying competitive, saving resources, and adapting to the evolving job market.

What kind of impact can tech-driven interview solutions have on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the hiring process for your corporate clients? Can you share any specific success stories or case studies?

Certainly, let me provide an example: One of our corporate clients, a leading tech company, adopted our AI interview software IncBot for their software engineering positions. Before implementing our solution, their average time-to-hire for these critical roles was around 60 days. After integrating our technology, they saw a remarkable 40% reduction in time-to-hire, bringing it down to just 36 days on average.

They further reported a 25% decrease in recruitment costs, primarily due to automation of initial screening and assessments. This cost reduction translated to significant savings in their annual recruitment budget.

In terms of quality of hires, they conducted a post-hire analysis and found that candidates who had gone through our AI-driven interview process had a 15% higher retention rate after one year compared to those hired through traditional methods. This demonstrated the effectiveness of our technology in identifying candidates who were a better fit for the company culture and job requirements. 

Additionally, candidate feedback improved significantly. The average candidate satisfaction score increased by 20%, highlighting the positive impact on the overall candidate experience. These statistics illustrate how our tech-driven interview solutions can substantially enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the hiring process for our corporate clients.

How do you address data security and privacy concerns as companies move towards incorporating more tech in the interview process? What are some fast-evolving trends in recruitment and talent acquisition that organisations must keep an eye on? 

We prioritise data security and privacy through encryption, strict access controls, compliance with regulations, regular security audits, candidate consent, and clear data retention policies. These measures ensure the protection of candidate information and corporate data.

Some of the fast-evolving trends in recruitment are AI automation, data analytics, remote work solutions, diversity tech, VR/AR, predictive hiring, and blockchain verification to stay ahead in recruitment and talent acquisition. AI interviews are going to be a huge trend in the coming years and companies must look out for them.