Emerging artificial intelligence hiring trends to watch out for in 2022

The job market has rebounded well as economic recovery moves forward. Recruiters are feeling the strain as a result of this change. Employees are leaving their existing jobs to pursue remote flexibility, better benefits, and a stronger commitment from their employers to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In 2021, recruiters have faced an increase in hiring activity, higher candidate expectations, and a shortage of skilled people in the market as a result of the digital shift and ensuing demand for new-age skills. For businesses to gain the benefits of technological advancements, they must have the right talent. As a result, recruiters are using automation and artificial intelligence (AI) tools for hiring operations now more than ever to keep up with the requirements. 

Artificial intelligence has emerged in a lot of recent dialogues with business leaders about their technology plans for the coming year in the HR and recruiting space. It's safe to assume that AI has a wide range of expectations. While many people are drawn to AI because of its "coolness" or "trendiness," a growing number of business leaders are interested in how AI-powered capabilities improve the efficiency and outcomes of their hiring operations.

As recruiters prepare for a candidate's market in 2022, here are a few emerging AI hiring trends to watch out for in 2022:

• Businesses want to streamline HR operations to create a more seamless, integrated ecosystem that is time efficient. It's critical to assess the most competent candidates as precisely as possible and AI-enabled advancements in evaluation technology have made that possible. AI-based hiring will make breakthroughs into objectively pre-screening candidates and shortlisting the top candidates for the job. It’s also convenient for HR professionals to remotely auto proctor a candidate's activity and calculate competency and trust scores. As systems become more developed, this will continue to be an emerging field. 
• Most talent acquisition leaders are working in an increasingly turbulent recruitment environment. With a myriad of hiring data floating around in HR systems, extracting relevant information to aid in better hiring becomes a major challenge. It will now be possible to unlock this data with artificial intelligence making a foray into talent acquisition in 2022. Most efforts in this field often begin with enhancements in recruiting processes like screening and scheduling automation.
• Businesses will also leverage AI to mitigate prejudice and increase diversity and inclusion. To improve candidate engagement and fully exploit the power of AI, they will direct their attention to developing more ethical AI. HR departments will determine the need for various evaluations. They will consciously remove redundant practices and questions that don’t impact the role or candidate. Questions with the most relevance will be given more weight. AI will also facilitate assessment-based interventions by detecting people's strengths, limitations, and learning preferences. This in turn will help businesses to plan their hiring processes more efficiently and fine-tune talent, while minimizing the impact of bias and human error. 
• One of the most common impediments to quality hiring is unconscious bias. Recruiting through AI will help minimize biases by using machine learning algorithms and insights to make decisions, resulting in a more objective and fair hiring process. AI-based recruiting is making progress toward objective pre-screening of candidates that eliminates similarity and confirmation bias. AI can also be applied at different levels during interventions and determine the most effective learning medium for a person and suggest learning modules that ensure optimum retention. 
• Rapid technological advancements, internet penetration, and growing demand for skilled workers have prompted HR departments to adopt a hybrid approach. Recruiters may receive extensive insights on the company's growth objectives and hiring needs with AI-assisted technologies. This will allow them to determine the skills and expertise needed from candidates to boost revenue. Organisations can also discover more about other firms' private hiring and growth plans, as well as broader industry trends, using massive data sets - many of which are free and publicly accessible. This data can then be used to start recruiting projects that will find the ideal individual in a timely and competitive manner.
• Comprehensive assessments coupled with a cutting-edge platform have the potential to revolutionize end-to-end recruitment intelligence and campus onboarding. AI-powered systems generate data for the recruitment process as well as internal HR operations. Objectivity goes a long way when it comes to making decisions for hiring. Businesses can now count on algorithm-based forecasts to reduce bias and produce more consistent results. Harnessing automation will benefit organisations in determining the right talent and cross-functional movement on a holistic level. 
• Predictive analytics has emerged as a new trend in Human Resources over the last few months. High-performing employees are easily predicted by recruitment tools, and businesses are increasingly able to predict which employees are likely to quit. Ethical AI should be considered as a tool to help us overcome our prejudices. The need of the hour for businesses is to re-evaluate their hiring processes and upgrade them according to industry standards. It is, thus, imperative for businesses to invest wisely in cutting-edge technologies as well as human expertise. 

To stay current, attract and retain top candidates, HR teams must incorporate new technologies for HR operations and applications. Decisions should be taken to determine what will best benefit the organisation and its employees. To keep the process humanised, we must be vigilant to maintain the personal touch in whatever form is available. It will be a win-win situation for both the HR department and the people as long as the results are realised.

The article has been written by Sujatha Kumaraswamy, CEO, MeritTrac Services