The Case for Artificial Intelligence in Recruiting IT Talent

A s the United States emerges from the pandemic, many state and local government agencies are struggling to hire and retain workers. Not only have many retirement-age employees decided to accelerate their plans to retire, but agencies face stiff competition for workers from the private sector. As a result, for a number of key positions, especially those in IT, many government agencies are receiving fewer qualified applicants than the number of jobs available. To address this challenge, government agencies should start making use of AI tools to improve how they acquire and retain workers. A growing number of tools make use of AI to help organizations recruit and hire talent more effectively. First, AI can help candidates and employers find one another. Job boards like ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn use recommendation algorithms to suggest candidates and job openings, and services like Textkernel can parse resumes with natural language processing to build semantic search engines that allow recruiters to search for concepts like “IT security” rather than specific keywords or job titles. For example, the U.S. Departments of Labor, Defense and Veterans Affairs worked with the private sector on an AI challenge to help employers hire veterans who have valuable skills but whose profiles might not show up on a typical search based on their previous job titles. Agencies can also use applicant tracking systems, such as those offered by Oracle, SAP and Workday, to help recruiters and hiring managers be more efficient by digitizing the hiring process. These systems can help manage job postings, sort and rank candidates, and automate many routine tasks such as scheduling interviews. Some even offer chatbots, providing job seekers with immediate feedback on the status of their application or answering questions about the employer or position. The result is that hiring managers can move faster, increasing their productivity, making offers to qualified candidates sooner and obtaining higher acceptance rates.
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