🤨 How will AI impact TA?

Hey everyone,

It’s been a busy few months in the world of TA with RecFest, Institute of Student Employers, IHR and not to mention our very first partner event on increasing diversity in sport and media!

I’m back today with a few learnings on the impact of AI on TA and our 5 steps on how to justify Early Career ROI.

Lets get into it.

How will AI impact TA?

Here were my main takeaways from Bill Boorman keynotes on the impact of AI on Talent Acquisition and Recruitment.

We’ve got a huge opportunity to save time on repetitive tasks and high volume applications and let people teams focus on what they know best… Human connection.

So we can reinvent the candidate experience and have more time to focus on areas like diversity and early careers.

⛓ Early Career talent is moving up the value chain

Some say that organisations can use AI to remove some of the more menial repetitive tasks that has largely been done by early career hires so we don’t need to employ them anymore…

PwC on the other hand are using AI to reduce workload but instead of reducing early career hiring they’re using this as an opportunity to instead give junior staff members the chance to work on much more high impact projects far earlier in their career journey increasing the early career ROI.

👾 Even in an AI-first future Talent Acquisition won’t disappear

As more tasks shift to AI, Talent Acquisition will play a role in selecting, onboarding and coordinating AI agents across the business, just like hiring a team.

We’ll need to become AI Managers understanding how to prompt well, police, check and train AI.

👩🏿‍💻 Candidates want to be assessed by AI

Because AI has the capability to be transparent and give honest fast feedback.

People are sick of being rejected at final stages based on things that could have been decided at the start of the process.

But we should be clear to candidates about when and how AI is being used to assess them.

📉 TA Teams are down 40% post-Covid

But application volumes having dropped. Candidate contempt is growing not because of bad recruiters, but because of broken processes and stretched teams.

📈 73% of candidates are already using AI in applications

But employers aren’t telling them how to use it well.

Organisations need to decide acceptable use of AI in their application process and communicate that to candidates.

AI is going to tell them exactly what to say to pass your application process so the focus needs to be on identifying and verifying skills.

👀 Be rigorous when selecting recruitment tech using AI

They’re all going to say their AI is inclusive but what data has been used to train it?

How does it make selection decisions?

What outcomes and evidence is there to prove bias has been reduced not increased?

🖤 Human connection early on is becoming even more crucial

In the new world of AI meeting candidates face to face at careers events early on to build trust and create human connections way before they’ve even thought about applying will become essential.

Young professionals want 3-4 points of engagement before applying.

🤯 Eventually jobs may find people rather than the other way around

Rather than submitting hundreds of slightly different applications I think candidates are likely to focus on building online profiles and portfolios which are then assessed by AI with selected candidates invited to interview.

How to Prove ROI on Early Careers

In today’s economy the pressure is on TA and Early Careers leaders to prove the value of investing in early careers programmes. There’s a need to show that EC isn’t just a nice to have it’s a strategic investment.

Here’s our 5 steps on how to make the case:

1️⃣ Start with the why
Early careers is more than just hiring young professionals. It’s finding the future leaders for the business, building a talent pipeline, improving diversity, and strengthening your employer brand.

2️⃣ Agree what to measure
Before you do anything, agree on success. That might mean:

• Retention after 12–24 months

• Cost vs mid-level hires

• Progression into permanent roles

• Manager satisfaction

• Diversity in the talent pipeline

3️⃣ Think system, not scheme
Early careers shouldn’t be a side project. Build it into your full talent system:
Attract → Recruit → Develop → Manage → Retain

4️⃣ Use data
Speak the language of the business. Add context to make it land:

Our graduate hires from 2021 are 20% more likely to be promoted than external hires, with a 30% lower cost-per-hire.

5️⃣ What’s in it for them?

• Finance: Long-term savings

• HR: Better retention and internal mobility

• DEI: Increased representation

• Hiring managers: Driven, digital and social media native, coachable talent

Make it easy for stakeholders to see what they’re getting out of it.

Book a call here if you want to chat with me about attracting more diverse early to mid level talent.

Until next time 👋🏽

Tobi

If you enjoyed this email why not pass on our newsletter to a friend in the industry?