For many larger recruitment consultancies, AI has become a necessary tool for screening thousands of candidates. What might have taken days can now be done at the touch of a button. This new efficiency helps lower operational costs and help consultants meet deadlines set by their clients.
But scalability often reduces precision. What seems a good idea can result in firms raising up candidates who are just savvy at gaming the system.
What we lose when AI takes on hiring decisions
At Aldrich & Co, our policy is to read every application we receive, and not to outsource it to a machine. Artificial intelligence runs on prompts: Find the best fit; shortlist only candidates who have at least 5 years of experience. With AI as a first reader, consultancies miss non-traditional candidates who might have interesting backgrounds but don’t fit the mould. Most importantly, we simply don’t know what kind of biases are baked into the algorithms we use.
For our clients, AI-hired candidates can be risky. Teams hired through AI may find themselves so similar in character that they become risk-averse and less motivated to compete. In our decades of experience, we have found the real leaders do not fit ‘type’. Recruitment consultants with years of experience in industry networking and relationship building are the best way to find such candidates.
What we look for that AI cannot
Recruitment consultants are trained to spot candidates who will pair well with the people in the hiring company. Unless both candidates and company team have spent a very long time ‘talking’ to the same algorithm, AI is simply not going to be able to process this critical information.
We get to know all our candidates on a personal level, encouraging them to come into our Westminster office. Speaking face-to-face gives us an invaluable insight into what moves them, allowing us to hear their curiosity, humility, and how they handle pressure. Reading for character is not easy on paper, and very difficult for an AI to assess. Recruitment consulting is all about building human relationships, and instincts matter. Also, candidates want to meet a person, not a bot.
Why LinkedIn is not the best way to hire candidates
LinkedIn is a social media platform, and as with all such platforms, the algorithm behind it rewards visibility. This means that recommended candidates are those who spend time on the platform. They may not be the most capable candidates for the role.
Again, this is where AI can work against good hiring practices. Candidates who game the system with keyword-heavy profiles and regular personal branding efforts get seen first. This might not be such a problem if you are looking for a tech-savvy PR manager. But for most other roles, candidates who are gregarious online aren’t always going to be the best match.
Why human recruiters are so valuable
We are specialist recruiters for London’s finance & banking industry, and we know one bad hire can be an expensive mistake. If you choose a recruitment consultancy that uses AI to process applications, you miss the hard work we do in reading for character, cultural dynamics, trust, and emotional maturity. These are traits that we know we cannot see in a CV alone, let alone via artificial intelligence!
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As AI continues to flood the market, companies that focus on human-driven decisions for hiring employees play the long game. They are more likely to get candidates who have been tested rigorously, not only for what they can do but how genuine they are in their work.
If you have been inspired by this article to hire a human recruitment consultant, do get in touch! We are London’s specialist recruiters for its finance & banking industry. We offer consulting and coaching services for all our client’s hiring needs.