The Use of AI & Technology in Recruitment, for Candidates.

It’s the time of Artificial Intelligence.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, ChatGPT has prompted various discussions from Boardroom table to dinner table. It’s an area we’ve been interested in here at iMultiply for some time now, primarily because we are increasingly seeing our customers (most of whom work in the accountancy and finance space) starting to integrate automation into their teams, whether for invoice processing, bank reconciliations or even on-boarding and off-boarding staff.

We’ve also been keeping a close eye on how AI and automated solutions might also impact our own business, that of recruitment. But we thought it was time for a bit of an update…which turned into an interesting experiment. So this blog is the first of two; below we imagine we’re an accountancy and finance candidate looking for a job, going through the key steps and looking at how AI & technology can help?

(In our follow-up we’ll take a look from the employer perspective, but if you want to read more on AI and tech in recruitment generally, click here.) On with the blog!

Finding a job with the help of Artificial Intelligence?

We thought we’d start at the beginning (a very good place to start so we’re told), and simply ask ChatGPT – “How can I find a finance job in Edinburgh?”. The response is pretty good actually; it covers many of the basics around using job portals but also ground-work elements such updating your resume and starting to network more. It even suggests you contact recruitment agencies [don’t think it’s allowed to specify which, otherwise I’m sure it would have said iMultiply 😉].

Contact recruitment agencies: Reach out to recruitment agencies specialising in finance or financial services. They can assist you in finding suitable job opportunities and provide guidance throughout the application process.

But what we also know is technology is also being utilised by other systems and tools in this area as well, such as the various job boards ChatGPT itself suggests. You only need to start searching jobs on LinkedIn before the algorithm starts suggesting similar ones, or highlighting other areas you might be interested or have relevant experience for. And let’s be honest, the likes of LinkedIn (and indeed S1Jobs etc.) have already revolutionised the job hunt…anyone remember scouring the job pages of newspapers?

But do remember, not every job opening is posted on a digital platform – many of our customers are simply starting to think about additional roles they need filling, or indeed (as we ourselves often are) they would be really interested in hiring people with specific skills or experience at any point in time IF they came knocking. So don’t limit yourself to what’s out there in the public domain.

Writing a CV using Artificial Inteligence?

Tools, platforms and templates to do this have been around for ages actually, and recent technological advances have only made them better. As a starting point many (including ChatGPT) work well – especially the ways you can ask and answer questions of AI in order to educate it before it spits out the results. [If that sentence puzzles you, start Googling about prompt engineering.] However, what you’ve got to watch-out for is that they may not tell your full story, and likely not in your (probably relatively unique) tone-of-voice. But overall, provided you’re willing to refine the output, tech can be a great first step towards that killer CV for sure.

Matching you to a job via technology.

As we’ve mentioned above, job boards and other such services do try to match candidates to potential roles they might suit, however from our research so far there is a key component missing here. It’s our view that many people (most of the people we encounter) are just as interested in finding a role to match their aspirations, in a business where they will fit the culture and that will motivate them. Yes, previous experience and skill-set are important, but the less tangible matching is also critical….and so far none of the platforms we found go to that next level of more personal or ambition-related matching.

Salary Benchmarking online?

Once again there are positives here around what technology has been able to deliver. Websites such as Glassdoor certainly help in sharing estimated salaries for jobs in different roles and/or locations; and if you’re working in or looking to join a large company they can be useful comparators. They are of course much less reliable in the SME end of the scale, where there simply aren’t enough data points to estimate with much accuracy or confidence. Again [and we’re not just saying this!] it demonstrates where a good recruitment consultant can be useful, even if you have no intention of moving jobs but just want a feel for market salary rates. They will be able to compare your position, responsibility levels, experience and more – and give you a feel for how that compares to other similar roles in the market, even if they have quite different job titles or are in different industry sectors.

Interview Preparation.

For this we again turned to ChatGPT, and actually it’s pretty great on this one! When asked how to prepare for a Finance Manager job interview, it ticked most of the boxes. Whether the obvious like ‘Research the Company’, to the perhaps less so such as ‘Anticipating questions and practicing answers’. And it even went into role specific things such as:

Study Financial Concepts: Refresh your knowledge of finance-related concepts and terminology, such as financial statements, budgeting, forecasting, cost analysis, risk management, and financial regulations. Be prepared to discuss these topics and provide examples of how you’ve applied them in your previous roles.

We know, that’s not rocket-science, and our consultants could certainly do better, but as a quick reminder it did a pretty good job overall. Now of course, as we’ll cover in our next blog AI and technology is also now increasingly being used by employers as they PREPARE to interview you…but more on that to come!

So what’s the conclusion?

Overall we can’t question the fact the technology has already revolutionised the job hunting experience, and also that ChatGPT does a pretty good job – at least for those quick reminders anyway. But [sorry, another obviously statement from a recruitment consultancy coming up!] we don’t feel the role of recruitment consultants are being replaced any time