LinkedIn Tests Advanced AI Assistant for Recruiters

Just when you think that LinkedIn’s added in all the generative AI elements that it possibly can, it comes up with another way to incorporate automated assistance into its process.

Its latest AI update is a new Hiring Assistant tool for recruiters, which will enable HR managers to automatically generate a short list of LinkedIn users who look like a good match for an advertised role.

That’s right, you’ll no longer need to impress actual human recruiters in order to get an interview, you’ll need to appeal to AI-based systems, which will be scanning your profile and application data for relevant elements, that will then see you recommended (or not) for the job.

Which seems a bit concerning, and probably gameable to a degree, if you can work out what the system is looking for. Like, if you reverse engineer it, by feeding the job ad into your own AI assistant, and asking it what the key elements of a job ad are, that might enable you to identify how to customize your profile for a given role.

But LinkedIn seems confident that it’s built in enough safeguards to ensure accuracy and quality in its automated recommendations.

As per LinkedIn:

“Based on your hiring goals, your assistant will automatically build a pipeline of qualified candidates for review, surface top applicants, draft outreach, and even answer basic questions about the role.”

LinkedIn’s new assistant can also schedule interviews, take notes, and manage follow-up, so you can spend less time on admin, and more time on maximizing training and integration into the team.

It seems fairly idealistic, but then again, given LinkedIn’s massive database of professional insights, it probably does have the info to power such a tool.

It’s the latest evolution of LinkedIn’s recruitment tools, building on its initial AI hiring improvements that announced back in February. The new Hiring Assistant bot incorporates all of LinkedIn’s other AI refinements for recruitment into a single tool, in order to make it easier to sort through candidates, and find the right people for any given role.

But as noted, I do have some concerns about its capacity to be cheated, and the way that this creates a more SEO-like process for job searchers.

But then again, many recruiters already have arbitrary systems in place to help them sift through applications, and as such, this may well be an improvement. Even if it does feel a bit strange to be reducing human assessment in career choices.

LinkedIn says that it’s testing Hiring Assistant with a select group of LinkedIn customers from this week, including AMD, Canva, Siemens, and Zurich Insurance. A broader launch will likely be announced next year.