In today’s fast-paced hiring landscape, PEOs and Payroll Service Bureaus know their clients—small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs)—face a daunting challenge: Finding top talent amid overflowing applicant pools must feel like searching for gold in a silver mine.
Manual résumé screening is slow, costly and risks overlooking exceptional candidates who don’t fit traditional molds. Hiring managers “have no choice but to use AI to sort through that stuff,” Nathan Soto, a career expert at Resume Genius, told CNN. He went on to say that this sort of mundane material is “what the ATS craves,” referring to an Applicant Tracking System.
By offering an AI-driven ATS, Professional Employer Organizations and Payroll Service Bureaus empower their clients with tools to make faster, smarter hiring decisions, leveling the playing field for SMBs. Companies, such as Mastercard implemented AI in their hiring process to great success, allowing them to hire new employees up to 85% faster than before.
Precision & Insight
AI in applicant tracking is more than automation—it’s about precision and insight. By leveraging machine learning, natural language processing and predictive analytics, AI analyzes résumés, job descriptions and candidate profiles to match skills and experience with role requirements. Unlike static keyword searches, AI can detect nuanced patterns to deliver a shortlist of high-potential candidates efficiently.
The benefits of AI in applicant tracking can be transformative.
By swiftly analyzing thousands of applications, AI frees hiring teams to focus on meaningful tasks like engaging candidates and improving onboarding. It also transforms the candidate experience by quickly pinpointing ideal matches to keep top talent from slipping away due to drawn-out processes.
Most powerfully, AI can predict which candidates have the best chance for success in a particular role, drawing on someone’s résumé and other performance insights that might escape human notice. For organizations, this isn’t just about filling roles—it’s about building dynamic teams poised for lasting success. And according to Entrepeneur.com, AI can cut hiring time by 50% and reduce errors by predicting candidate success. Risks like false positives or biases in training data persist but can be mitigated with audits and human oversight. PEOs and Payroll Service Bureaus can help clients balance these costs and risks for maximum impact.
Best Practices
Integrating AI into applicant tracking is straightforward. PEOs and Payroll Service Bureaus can guide clients to:
- Train Their Teams: AI handles data-heavy tasks, but human oversight refines criteria and assesses intangibles like cultural fit. “AI should not be making a decision on hiring. At the end of the day, a human needs to make a decision,” Madeline Laurano, chief analyst at Aptitude Research, an HR advisory firm, told CNN.
- Ensure Data Quality: Standardized job descriptions and résumé formats boost AI accuracy.
- Audit Performance: Regular reviews keep algorithms aligned with hiring trends.
- Communicate Transparently: Inform candidates about AI’s role and data protection to build trust.
Addressing Bias in AI
Claims of AI being fully unbiased are inaccurate. Early systems sometimes amplified biases from training data, like Amazon’s 2018 tool that penalized female-associated résumés.
Today, developers are improving fairness by using diverse datasets and objective criteria with ongoing audits to minimize bias. For clients, this means access to tools that prioritize equitable evaluations. PEOs and Payroll Service Bureaus can highlight AI’s progress toward fairness, ensuring hiring aligns with ethical standards and meets compliance requirements. Reinforcing Laurano’s point, a human must make the final decision on personnel matters. AI simply speeds up the process by filtering out completely unsuitable candidates and sorting the best ones.
The Revolution Has Just Begun
AI will continue to get better and better in applicant tracking, and the revolution is just getting started.
AI-powered applicant tracking will help your clients hire smarter and faster. By streamlining processes, reducing bias and predicting success, AI empowers SMBs to build stronger teams. PEOs and Payroll Service Bureaus can help clients embrace this technology, assess current systems and integrate an AI-driven ATS to stay ahead in the talent race. The next great hire is out there—AI can help find them.
Ready to transform hiring for your clients? Explore PrismHR’s AI-driven ATS to help your clients simplify, streamline and scale their recruitment processes.
