AI in recruitment is saturating our LinkedIn feed right now. Every scroll is a sponsored post saying:
“Boost your ROI”
“Automate your hiring”
“Save time with this software”
No hate to people out there doing their jobs and selling these types of software, but as recruiters, we should know better than to fall into the trap.
It’s a chaotic industry. It’s time-consuming processes. It’s constant back and forth. But on the other side of all of this are real people.
For candidates, this isn’t just another task on a to-do list.
It’s:
- Changing careers
- Supporting families
- Taking risks
- Trying to better their lives
We’re solving the wrong problem
AI is being sold as the answer to everything. But the truth is, AI is more likely to hinder candidate experience.
Choosing someone who is right for a role comes from:
- Understanding people
- Picking up on things a CV doesn’t show
- Having proper conversations
- Building trust
You can’t automate that.
Looking at everyday life
Think about how you feel when you’re desperately trying to get through to Sky, an airline, a retailer, HMRC, and you suddenly find yourself in a chatbot loop. Or sent to the wrong department. Or the line is cut off, and you hear nothing back.
Think about when you’re standing at a self-scan in Tesco with 20 other customers and the till isn’t picking up the weight of your singular onion. Or it’s telling you there’s an unexpected item in the bagging area.
We hate it. We moan about the customer service. So why are we building the same experience into hiring?
AI has a place – just not centre stage
We’re not anti-AI.
Used properly, it’s great for:
- Admin
- Organisation
- Supporting recruiters behind the scenes
But it should support the process – not be the process.
Because the second you remove the human element, you lose what actually makes recruitment work.
Let’s not forget what this job is
A good recruiter isn’t just matching keywords.
They’re:
- Reading between the lines
- Understanding motivations
- Having honest conversations
- Representing real people
That’s the job. Not just filtering profiles faster.
The bottom line
Technology will keep moving. That’s fine. But recruitment should always come back to people. Or at least we think it should.