The Meeting of the Artificial and Human Minds
Home > Talent > Article

The Meeting of the Artificial and Human Minds

Share it!
Wed, 04/25/2018 - 14:39

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the future, but recruiters cannot simply depend on AI to hire competent staff, said Oscar Harada, Senior Relationship Manager for LinkedIn Latin America, at Mexico Talent Forum at the Sheraton Maria Isabel hotel in Mexico City on Wednesday.

“AI is fantastic for narrowing down applications,” he said. “It can already be seen creeping into our everyday lives with the introduction of Amazon’s pioneering checkout-free grocery store that opened its doors in Seattle at the beginning of this year.”

Although he said that not all work functions will be replaceable by automation, there are five that have been identified by McKinsey & Co as the most susceptible: manufacturing, retail trade, hospitality, transportation and agriculture. Those five industries make up 46 percent of activities that are susceptible to automation.

LinkedIn carried out a global survey that asked thousands of recruiters where AI is most helpful to them. Among the answers, 58 percent said sourcing candidates, 56 percent screening candidates, 55 percent nurturing candidates and 42 percent scheduling candidates. “Yet these numbers dropped in terms of interpersonal functions, such as engaging candidates (24 percent) and interviewing candidates (only 6 percent).

Although many of those interviewed agreed that AI is helpful in saving time and money, delivering the best candidate matches and removing human bias, there seemed to be a “gut feeling” element missing.

The major problem of machines is that eventually they reach a plateau, he said. “AI cannot replace building relationships with candidates, find a candidate’s potential beyond credentials, judge the ‘cultural add’ or the cultural fit offered by candidates, gauge candidates’ interpersonal skills or convince candidates to accept offers.”

Harada’s main question was: how can we mix data with that gut feeling so we can find the right candidate for the job?

He explained that LinkedIn is rolling out a revolutionary global program called the Economic Graph to map important factors for recruiters, such as where supply and demand is higher, the competitors to which a recruiter is losing talent and the main skills gaps within the company. The program analyzes 530 million members, 18 million companies, 11 million jobs, 50,000 skills and 29,000 schools. “We want to connect talent and the need for it on a massive level,” said Harada.

He added that the company is incorporating Andrew Ng’s revolutionary theory of deep learning, which is an algorithm that surpasses AI’s learning plateau by constantly feeding more information into the system. “Today we have all the tools to be able to define all the answers,” he said. “All we need is a little time to be able to develop our algorithms further.”

You May Like

Most popular

Newsletter