Benchmark venture capitalist Victor Lazarte made headlines after suggesting on the Twenty Minute VC podcast that AI is coming for white-collar jobs like lawyers and recruiters.
“One thing that I think is super exciting right now is just replacing people,” Lazarte told podcast host Harry Stebbings. “It sounds really bad when you say it this way, but I actually think it’s the most exciting opportunity in venture right now.”
Lazarte suggested that AI interviews could be more efficient than human ones and added that tech investment into hiring can showcase improvements in talent acquisition with data, and that data can, in turn, help companies adjust their models to continually improve outcomes.
While recruiters and talent acquisition pros are not strangers to automation and new AI tools, whether those tools prove valuable enough to replace humans remains unseen. HR Brew spoke with recruiters and TA experts, and asked for their insights into the possibility of a fully automated recruitment process.
“A lot of these people building these tools have never worked in HR or recruiting to really understand how this operates,” said Steve Knox, global head of TA at Dayforce, which boasts its own suite of AI-powered tools. “I can't tell you how many times I’ve had entrepreneurs reach out to me to say, ‘Hey, Steve, can you walk us through how recruiting works, wing-to-wing, so that we can build this better,’ and I’m surprised at how often these people do not really understand the day-to-day workings of how recruiting operates.”
Joel Lalgee, who runs both a boutique recruitment firm, The Realest Recruiter, and a podcast of the same name, agrees.
“I think a lot of these VCs that are saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got a tool that can replace recruiting.’ It’s because a lot of them have reduced recruiting down to where it’s just an algorithm, where it’s [matching] a job description with a resume,” Lalgee said. “But anyone who’s in recruiting knows that that’s the starting point. There’s so much more.”
Lalgee said current AI tools are effective at early stages of recruitment, but they fall short of addressing deeper challenges around candidate-employer fit.
Quick-to-read HR news & insights
From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.
“You’re solving the top of funnel, but you’re not really solving why it’s so hard to find matches with people,” he said, adding that many large companies are facing an onslaught of incoming applications, so AI has been useful in taking a first pass at the pile, and it can even support lightening the load via some AI-led interviewing.
But Lalgee said the current labor market likely won’t exist forever. He said the majority of his career has been spent passive recruiting and "hunting people down" to sell them to open roles, not sifting through hundreds and hundreds of applications.
“What we’re seeing is definitely an advancement in technology and the capabilities that we have, but we’re also seeing [AI solve] a lot of problems [with] this particular market,” he said. “I think what a lot of these companies are underestimating is the fact that it’s a job market…you’re going to see shifts in supply and demand.”
Stephanie Sansone, who runs TA at iCIMS, said recruiters should embrace AI, especially for the rote work involved in TA, but she’s not concerned that AI tools are primed to help with some of the most challenging, intuitive components to hiring.
“We need to continue to evolve into strategic partners and advisors that are more comfortable leveraging and amplifying our employer brand, telling this story, and navigating in the area of nuance—sometimes where I find AI is the most successful is where it’s black or white. But recruiters, we live in the ambiguity of gray,” Sansone said.
Recruiters are constantly hearing and navigating different needs between candidates and hiring managers, and have become “professional matchmakers,” she said. No current technology is capable of navigating the nuance of different human needs and figuring out where they are.
“Where recruiters bring in incredible value is being able to translate what sometimes is on a piece of paper and doesn’t tell the full story, but the recruiters can give context and color with specific examples through the conversation that they’ve had with candidates,” Sansone said.