Is Recruitment Losing the Human Conversation?

Recruitment has changed significantly over the last few years.

Applications can now be completed in minutes. AI can help write a CV or cover letter. Initial screening can be automated. Interviews can take place without anyone leaving their home.

There are plenty of positives to this. Technology can make recruitment quicker, more accessible and more efficient.

But are we also in danger of removing too much of the actual conversation from recruitment?

The rise of the ‘no-phone’ candidate

A recent article about the so-called ‘no-phone generation’ caught our attention at Full Time Solutions. Recruiters are reporting increasing numbers of younger candidates who are much more comfortable communicating through text, WhatsApp, email or social media than answering an unexpected telephone call.

That probably shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.

Communication habits have changed. For many people entering the workplace today, messaging has been the normal way of communicating for most of their lives but recruitment presents a slightly different challenge.

A CV can tell us where somebody has worked, what they have studied and what skills they say they have.

A conversation can tell us considerably more.

Why are they looking for a new opportunity?

What actually interests them about the role?

What have they learned from their previous experience?

Where do they want their career to go?

Sometimes a ten-minute conversation can provide context that would never come across through a CV alone.

Then we add AI into the process

AI has added another layer to this.

We regularly talk about the benefits of using AI appropriately when looking for work. It can be a useful tool for reviewing a CV, researching an organisation, preparing for an interview or helping someone communicate their experience more clearly. The problem comes when AI starts replacing the individual’s own voice, a professionally written CV may get someone’s attention, but the person still needs to be able to talk confidently about the experience and achievements it contains.

If an application has been heavily produced by AI, the recruiter uses AI to screen it, the initial communication is automated and the first interview takes place through a screen, at what point do the employer and candidate actually get to know each other?

For us, that is an important question.

A good CV should open the conversation – not replace it

This is something we regularly discuss through our Profile Development work.

Your CV and LinkedIn profile need to represent you well. They should clearly communicate your experience, achievements and potential and AI can certainly help with that, but the objective shouldn’t be to create the most polished collection of words possible. It should be to create an accurate representation of you.

If your CV describes you as commercially minded, confident with stakeholders or an excellent communicator, you need to be comfortable demonstrating those qualities when somebody speaks to you. Ultimately, the profile gets you into the conversation. You still have to take it from there.

Should candidates become more comfortable picking up the phone?

We think there is value in it.

That doesn’t mean every recruiter should repeatedly cold-call candidates or that somebody should be judged because they missed an unexpected call. Recruiters and employers need to recognise that communication preferences have changed. A quick message saying “I’ve seen your application and would like to have a ten-minute chat – when would suit you?” may achieve far more than repeatedly calling somebody who doesn’t recognise the number.

But candidates can also benefit from developing confidence speaking with recruiters and employers, particularly for people trying to secure their first opportunity, those conversations are valuable experience. You won’t always know exactly what you’re going to be asked. You might stumble over an answer. You might even finish the call thinking you could have explained something better.

That’s part of developing professional confidence, Avoiding those conversations completely doesn’t necessarily help prepare you for interviews or the workplace itself.

Where should parents fit into the process?

Another interesting element of recent research has been the level of parental involvement in some younger people’s job searches.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking parents, lecturers, mentors or other trusted people for advice, having somebody review your CV, help you prepare for an interview or talk through an offer can be incredibly useful but there comes a point where the candidate needs to take ownership.

Contacting the employer, attending the interview, asking questions and discussing the opportunity are all part of demonstrating independence and building confidence.

Support can be valuable – Taking over the process is very different from supporting someone through it.

Employers have a responsibility as well

It would be very easy to turn all of this into another debate about what younger generations are doing wrong – We don’t think that’s particularly helpful – Recruitment processes have changed too.

Candidates can spend significant time applying for opportunities and receive little or no feedback. Some processes involve multiple stages, automated assessments and video interviews before a meaningful conversation takes place. At the same time, employers may receive hundreds of applications for one vacancy and understandably look towards technology to help manage the volume. Neither side is operating in a particularly simple environment – That’s why employers should regularly review their recruitment processes and ask some fairly basic questions.

Are we making it easy for good candidates to engage with us? Are there unnecessary stages? Are we relying too heavily on automation? Are candidates clear about what happens next? And are we creating enough opportunity for an actual conversation?

Sometimes technology can improve a recruitment process – Sometimes adding a simple human interaction can improve it even more.

Finding the balance

At Full Time Solutions, we don’t believe the answer is going backwards and removing technology from recruitment.

AI isn’t disappearing. Neither are online applications, video interviews or digital communication – The challenge is finding the right balance.

For candidates, that means using technology to support your job search without allowing it to replace your personality, independence or ability to communicate.

For employers, it means using technology to make recruitment more efficient without creating a process that becomes so automated that you struggle to understand the people applying.

Recruitment is ultimately about matching people with opportunities.

However sophisticated the technology becomes, we shouldn’t lose the value of a conversation along the way.