Frequently people have talked about the tools and software that screen the resumes to search for a candidate fit for a role in an organization. With the help of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, it is expected that robots and machines will take over humans and will solely determine the candidate best for the jobs and positions in the company. But to get there, there is a journey that is being traveled and it might be a while till we reach there. 

So what is our current status in terms of recruitment and how human less are we? The significant reality about the human-less hiring that it is never human-less. In the process, humans are always involved, which in this case will be hiring a human for a role. But there is no denying that automation and technology enablement is very visible around the recruitment process. Another fascinating attribute of automation in talent acquisition is how it improves assessment which helps in cross talent acquisition. 

With recruitment going human less there will be an alteration the process but the principles of the process will remain the same. According to Rajat Mathur, MD, Head of HR at Morgan Stanley, “There are potentially segments of the process that I think will get automated and needs to get automated. There are problems that we need to solve and technology is potentially is an option we need to consider that solves the problem of whether it is efficiency, saving of time or whether removing of bias are the potential problems that can be changed by leveraging technology.” 

It is important to solve the right problems in the process and eliminate bias from the process of recruitment, search, and selection or administrative. The automation was a process introduced to us way back with applicant tracking systems when the CV of people was received by emails and not by post anymore. But the interesting part to see will be evaluation screening. The industry is still accessing what part of the talent acquisition process can become humanless. It is expected that in future very intelligent system will understand the requirement of the user; evaluation is a risky area but the experimentation has begun like Tengia world's first robot designed by a Swedish company to carry out unbiased job interviews that will assess you solely based on your responses. If successful, it can change the entire outlook of the talent acquisition process, as part of the process that we believe needs to be human will become non-human or partly non-human. 

As humans, once you remove the bias from the assessment then we are truly assessing the candidate for a role in the organization. But where bias can’t be compromised is the culture of an organization.

Steven Murray global head people development at Zomato says “One should always hire culture fit candidate because that is something that breaks down teams, and momentum which technology can’t do. Humans still need to step in sometimes.” 

With Artificial Intelligence making rapid progress there is a possibility that a platform will soon achieve a level where they might eliminate the entire HR department and the entire process of talent acquisition will change and shift towards human less hiring. To which Head talent manager of Mondelez International Saleel Panse said, “The other side of this process is a hiring manager who will make the decision and is not a robot. A human will always be involved to make a decision about whether to hire this person or not. Whatever the system may come up with, some human intervention will be required.” 

In this game of probability, humans are giving us successful hiring. The day technology does that humans will either have to step up or step out. 

Towards the end, investing in automation can be cost-effective once we figure out which segments of the process require automation as a solution; for which we need to be thorough with the problems if the process. Even with automation, humans will eventually require human interaction like in the evolution of video games, where playing against the machine wasn't enough, but playing against another human was more motivating for ego satisfaction. 

Additionally, the maximum revenue an organization can generate is by the humans being involved in it. The patterns of the talent acquisition might change but the process will remain the same with the best result is generated when the humans and technology co-exist together and help each other.  

(This article is based on a panel discussion on Human Less Hiring conducted at Talent Acquisition Conference 2019 by People Matters)