How to select what processes to automate

In order to fully leverage the potential of RPA to streamline recruitment, companies must take into account some practices for successful implementation. Among those practices, process selection is key, because when it comes to robotic process automation for recruitment, not all processes are made equal.

The right process choice is context dependent, meaning that your specific business objectives should shape the decision of what to automate, when, what for. Starting from a very concrete problem and having a clear goal to be attained are necessary ‘ingredients’ for selection of the recruiting tasks that are likely to benefit most from automation.

Another useful thing to do from the very beginning is to calculate your robotics quotient, a helpful measure to evaluate your company’s readiness for robotic process automation. We provide some guidelines here for ways to answer questions about the ability of your organisation to handle the challenges of automation and AI, and about the readiness to learn, adapt and work alongside digital entities of your recruiting staff.

An overview of the project team members (e.g., recruiters, stakeholders, technology evaluators) with their specific duties should be part of the first stage of process assessment. Further collaboration with stakeholders is also very important because they can provide useful guidance for a coherent trajectory of the recruitment automation journey.

In order to play it safe (and successful), you ought to be fully aware of the rules governing the recruiting processes that you consider automating, and of the compliance risks involved. Of course, the higher the risk, the less likely that a process should makes it to the ‘automation shortlist’. Processes that are either marked for re-work, continually change over the short to medium term, or those that will be eliminated in the near term should also pertain to the category of processes to be avoided - read more about that here.

How to get started with intelligent automation for recruitment

The short answer is simple: start big.

In the first place, a robust foundation for implementing RPA, chatbots in particular, warrants more opportunities to take advantage of various courses of action after the pilot phase. By selecting more processes for integrated automation (according to the above-mentioned suggestions), you increase the likelihood of future progress at a macro scale for the whole business.

Moreover, by involving all business partners in a collaborative design of the implementation process, you minimise outcome uncertainty and thus stabilize the automation project. Having a long-term plan in the direction of scaling to enterprise level from the very beginning ensures more cohesive, well integrated measures that support goal attainment.

Last but not least, starting big with intelligent automation increases the overall productivity of the automation journey by enlarging the application scope and by facilitating recursion. For instance, if initially chatbots would just ask candidates the requisite pre-screening questions, with time they might get to answering candidates’ questions about the application process, or schedule interviews with the recruiters.

Conclusion

All in all, recruitment automation streamlines the hire-to-retire process and facilitates talent acquisition. Both are significant upgrades for your business, maximising the chances of reaching optimal hiring decisions fast. Among the expected consequences, consider financial gains, visibility on the market, social status enhancement, increased job satisfaction for your recruiting staff, improved candidate experience, etc., to name but a few.

Such outcomes are likely to strengthen the position of your organisation, and increase its rank on the market. In the end, deployment of automation technology for recruiting paves the way towards talent acquisition and all its beneficial effects.

Not only can RPA be used during the recruitment phase, but it can also be successfully implemented in further steps after the hiring process. One such example is streamlining the employee ID creation process. You can watch below how UiPath did this specific process automation for BMW in an RPA pilot.