One of the most important steps in recruiting is the conversation between a recruiter and a candidate. Unfortunately, it’s a step we have not been able to monitor or analyze. We hope the recruiter is having the most effective conversation possible, but we don’t really know. Neither do they.
Sales has the same issue and it’s been addressed by products like Gong.io. In a nutshell, Gong records and analyzes sales calls so that you are in a position to learn what works and what doesn’t. Now a tool like this has been introduced for recruiting: BrightHire.ai.
At it’s most basic BrightHire guides and records a structured recruiting conversation that can be annotated on the fly. This is useful for sharing key parts of the conversation with others, and it’s also useful for coaching new recruiters. A recruiter might tell a manager “Listen to the part about his project in Thailand – click here.” The head of a recruiting department might tell a new recruiter “Listen to how one of our star recruiters handled a situation where the candidate seemed to be hiding something.”
The really exciting part is analysis of the conversational dynamics. This includes data like the talk/listen ration, the interactivity (i.e. back and forth), talking speed, and the longest monologue. All this can be studied to reveal best practices and used for coaching. The sophistication of this can be ramped to seek to identify what topics were talked about or identify the elements of the conversation that were most engaging for the candidate. I’m sure other types of useful analysis will be continually be developed.
What is interesting
- Most of the tools we see for talent acquisition are focused on easing the administrative burden—or in other words, automation—or in other, other words, reducing the human element. In this case, we’re using tech to enhance the human element and addressing one of the most important links in the talent acquisition chain.
What is really important
- An area that was largely an individual craft is now open to data collection and analysis. An improved ability to analyze conversation dynamics should help improve the performance of recruiters.
- Recruiting is just the start. Analyzing conversational dynamics might prove a valuable technique in many parts of HR.