The current employee recruitment mechanisms and systems are lacking in many ways. They do not work for companies or job seekers in the optimal manner. The online recruitment portals make it relatively easy for job seekers to apply for jobs online. However, these portals screen resumes and not real people. Applicants can pay for many available services to meticulously engineer their resumes to include the right keywords in sometimes deceptive and misleading manner. While the correct keyword placement may help for the system to select their resumes over others, these resumes often overstate and exaggerate the applicants’ real knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs). Often, applicants who choose not to hire resume writers to tinker with their resumes do not get an opportunity for being interviewed just because they did not include the correct keywords. We have all heard some examples of this word tinkering. Home keepers become domestic engineers while janitors become custodial engineers. They are not true engineers but with the placement of the chosen keyword, job search portals will likely advance their resumes for engineering jobs. While this is an oversimplified example, the problem with this word play goes much deeper and causes serious misunderstandings. The cost of this is bad hires that result in higher turnover rates and loss productivity.
Job search portals also generate a lot of extra work for human resource departments. Many job applicants apply for jobs that they do not qualify for because it is too easy for them to submit their applications anyway. Significant amounts of wasted manhours are being spent in reviewing resumes of unqualified or generally poor-quality job applicants. On the other hand, many job postings require an applicant to first upload a resume and then manually complete a job application retyping much of the same information that is listed on the resume. While some applicant tracking systems (ATS) and human resource information systems (HRIS) do a decent job automatically filling the information from resumes, there are often many errors that need to be manually corrected. For applicants that have complex and lengthy resumes, this becomes a rather frustrating and time-consuming task. Since many of the best job applicants already have jobs, they do not have the time to apply for jobs that require this level of manual inputting and setting up accounts with login credentials that they later forget anyway.
The current job search portals are quite expensive for companies to post their job opportunities to, and their search functions are inadequate to generate proper job search results highlighting the jobs posted. In addition, some of them generate misleading automatic pay ranges as they are required in some states and not in others. Since they do not require job announcements to be structured on a certain way or to follow a certain format, they do not often provide the correct information about the jobs being posted. Many companies lack job analysis skills and do not write good quality job descriptions and job announcements. Some companies do not truly understand the criteria needed to recruit the best talent. They do not post appealing job announcements and lack the skills to conduct proper structured interviews based on those announcements. In addition to this, many multilayer marketing schemes and franchise brokers use these job portals to recruit for entrepreneurial business opportunities rather than real jobs. The economy has become a gig economy, so these job search portals now also recruit for contract workers for short term engagements. Yet, the portals do not do a good job categorizing these different types of opportunities. Applicants become easily discouraged and frustrated, turning to other methods of job search.
The above examples are just a few of the many problems that current job seekers and companies hiring employees online face. As a result, the best qualified applicants do not get the best jobs, and companies have high turnover rates while unemployment remains high. There are real economic consequences for these poorly functioning systems. Business owners and company executives are not pleased with their recruitment processes while job seekers are not finding the right opportunities. Everyone loses and money is being wasted daily. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) can assist with this problem. All the above issues can be improved by smart job search systems utilizing AI technology. A properly developed adaptive job search portal powered by AI could improve the algorithms used by the current systems that rely on keyword recognition. It could add assessments and other functions to properly screen people rather than just resumes. At the same time, such a system could provide the needed structure for the job posters and improve the search functionalities. Furthermore, a system like it could incorporate training and education opportunities into the portal. The system could become a one stop shop for all job seeking or recruitment needs. AI powered systems could gather information about a job seeker from various sources automatically creating a true profile of a candidate. After all, it is known that the use of biodata of candidates is the best indicator of future retention of employees. Job applicants do not tell everything about themselves in their embellished resumes. They only show the image that they want the employers to see. They intentionally create illusions to make themselves appear more qualified than they are. After all, personal marketing and branding is important, and we are taught to do that by many job search coaches and books. However, employers that want to hire the best employees want to know more and understand job applicants more wholistically.
