Recruiting in the age of intelligent machines

CULTURE & CODE

By Joey Briones

Imagine this: a promising candidate applies for your open role.

But his/her résumé disappears into your applicant-tracking system with hundreds of others.

Days pass. Weeks.

By the time someone finally reviews the file, the candidate has accepted an offer elsewhere.

Sound familiar?

Josh Bersin’s latest research warns that this story is playing out everywhere.

Global job growth is projected to slow to just three percent over the next decade — down from 13 percent in the last— while companies still chase ambitious growth targets.

Fewer workers. Higher expectations.

Something has to give.

The AI inflection point

Enter artificial intelligence.

Not as a sci-fi intruder, but as a practical force already at work in recruiting.

Bersin notes that nearly 60 percent of recruiters use AI today for sourcing and screening, even as 79 percent of candidates say they want to know exactly how those algorithms shape their chances.

The early results are striking:

• AMS reports 75 percent faster recruiting administration and 50 percent faster sourcing.
• Compass Group achieved a 600 percent jump in application-to-interview conversions.
• At Fontainebleau Las Vegas, a digital twin named Morris answers candidate questions and issues offer letters—around the clock.

These aren’t experiments. They are glimpses of a near future where AI handles the heavy lifting.

Which raises a deeper question: if machines can already screen, schedule, and score, what is the recruiter’s new purpose?

From gatekeeper to guide

Bersin calls this the move from recruiter as process manager to recruiter as strategic orchestrator.

The modern recruiter becomes a conductor—directing AI systems, interpreting analytics, and shaping candidate experience.

They are part technologist, part storyteller, part culture-builder.

Are we preparing recruiters for that role?

Do they have the data fluency to question an algorithm’s recommendation as confidently as they once questioned a candidate’s résumé?

Rethinking the talent engine

For companies, the mandate is equally clear: Modernize the tech stack.

Legacy systems can’t support integrated, AI-driven workflows.

Measure what matters.

Time-to-fill is no longer enough; hiring must tie to innovation, agility, and revenue impact.

Invest in people.

Upskill recruiters in analytics and ethical AI oversight.

Train leaders to communicate openly so candidates trust the process.

Because in a world where AI can read thousands of résumés in seconds, the human differentiator is not speed.

It is judgment. Empathy. Connection.

The Human Imperative

AI will keep getting faster and smarter.

But it will never replace the conversation that convinces a brilliant candidate to join your mission, or the intuition that senses when someone will lift a team.

The Talent Acquisition Revolution is not about machines hiring people.

It is about humans using machines to hire better, faster, and more fairly—while staying unmistakably human.

So the real question is no longer if AI will transform recruiting.

It’s this: Will we shape AI to reflect our highest standards — or let it shape us?

(Joey Briones is a Philosophy and Letters graduate from San Beda College and a strategic People & Culture and Organizational Capability leader with over 25 years of experience across multinational corporations, start-ups, and mission-critical sectors—including technology, FMCG, healthcare, and telecommunications.)