A serial entrepreneur, Vikram boasts of a career experience of over a decade during which he founded Rely on Solutions and Maven Workforce, prior to incepting Vasitum.

Did you know that 70 percent job-seekers lose interest in a role if they don't hear back from the employer in a week? A recruiting team typically spends 55 percent of their time answering basic questions of the job-seekers and resolving their queries. HR teams usually end up directing all their energy in exhausting hiring processes and heaps of paperwork in the hunt for one potential candidate. It is time when technology adds more value in revolutionizing the recruitment industry further and minimizes recruiter's woes. What the industry needs is to reap the benefits of a chatbot, which acts as a solution to upgrade and solve the existing pain areas in the recruitment sector.

A chatbot is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) program that converses with humans in a meaningful and contextual way. From recruitment to onboarding to delivering a fantastic employee experience, chatbots offer numerous benefits to the recruitment industry. Their ability to be available around the clock is one of the unique selling propositions which add multiple business advantages. A chatbot not only revolutionizes the recruitment industry but exceptionally lowers the cost of maintaining a full-time customer support system.

Benefits of Chatbots in the HR Industry
Real-time Candidate Screening: Chatbots facilitate automated real-time communication, pre-screening, and scheduling interviews with candidates; making the hiring process faster and more transparent. A chatbot goes over the first round of profile vetting and instantly responds to a job-seeker whether they are rejected or shortlisted. The moment a candidate gets shortlisted, the chatbot schedules them for the next round of interview, meanwhile ensuring transparent and efficient candidate communication. These features give a candidate a quick update on the status of their job application and save lots of time and energy.

Responds to Almost 95 Percent of the Queries: Generally, job-seekers face radio silence after a job interview, where recruiters fail to notify them with development on the next round. A chatbot helps to fill this phase of silence. It notifies them about job result and also responds to their queries with an open-ended and natural conversation. On average, 60 percent of job-seekers leave the lengthy and confusing application process midway. Owing to chatbots, the probability of a job-seeker quitting the lengthy application process has witnessed an exponential drop. Most importantly, a chatbot engages with an unlimited number of applicants in real-time, giving them a sense of value and customer satisfaction.

Upgrades the User Experience: To provide an exceptional user experience, chatbots eliminate the downtime between a candidate submitting a CV and the recruiter getting back to them. It also enables to push selected candidate quicker along the hiring cycle, making their experience finer. This swift recruitment process makes both, candidates and recruiters satisfied.

With the heavy-lifting tasks been taken care of by a chatbot, recruiters can boost their productivity by indulging in more important tasks and creating a stronger relationship with the job-seekers

Facilitates a Quick Process of Hiring: Generally, recruiters take 42 days to fill an open position. Chatbot significantly reduces both, the cost involved in hiring and time required to hire. By automating major parts of qualifying and scheduling interviews in addition to corresponding with the candidates real-time, a chatbot has, now, made the recruitment process a painless task. With the heavy-lifting tasks been taken care of by a chatbot, recruiters can boost their productivity by indulging in more important tasks and creating a stronger relationship with the job-seekers.

Eliminates Perpetuating Biases in the Recruitment Industry: Chatbots screen candidates by utilizing large quantities of data and skills. They then combine these data points using algorithms, to conclude who could be a potential candidate. The algorithms are such that these data points are viewed objectively - free from any assumptions and biases.

Increases Productivity & Cost Effective: On average, every open position attracts about 250 resumes, out of which some four to six are shortlisted. There are also instances where 65 percent of resumes received for a role, are ignored due to the dearth of manpower to filter them. A chatbot automates 80 percent of top-of-funnel recruiting activities, allowing recruiters to be more efficient and increase their productivity. Chatbots take over the mundane tasks which otherwise require a large number of team. Organizations can, therefore, utilize their workforce on achieving better goals than doing the generic profile screening.

By 2025, the global economic impact of AI is expected between $7.1 trillion to $13.1trillion. 84 percent of C-suite executives and human capital leaders assume AI will leave an impact on the workplace in the next three to five years. Some even believe that automation will take over the human job market in the coming years, but ultimately recruitment is a human-led industry which won't suffice without us.

Chatbots are designed to take-over the repetitive tasks and leave recruiters with time for more important task. They are the dream assistant for a busy recruiter, taking on all the heavy-lifting, boring jobs and doing them in an efficient manner. Moreover, chatbots can never take over the human emotion factor which connects us together and helps us to understand each other better. It's time that rather than hesitating and looking at the negative side, we start utilizing the features of a chatbot to the fullest, which will enable the recruitment industry to further flourish.