From Admin to Impact: What AI in Other Industries Can Teach Recruiting

A few weeks ago, I had the absolute pleasure of attending the inaugural RLL50 Recruiting Leadership Lab in Seattle, an event created by the renowned John Vlastelica that brought together 50 top TA leaders for some truly insightful discussions. One of the biggest themes – and unsurprisingly so – was AI. Specifically, how AI is going to reshape the size and makeup of talent acquisition organizations over the next few years.

What I found especially interesting was the chance to look beyond recruitment and dive into how AI is impacting other industries like sales and engineering. Recruiting as a profession often lags slightly behind innovation in other sectors, but eventually draws strong parallels. So it’s important to keep a finger on the pulse as the lessons we can draw from these fields might just hold the key to how we approach the future of hiring.

What Recruitment Can Learn From Sales Automation

We kicked things off with a conversation featuring a sales leader from AWS. One of the things they highlighted was how AI has transformed the sales process.

Historically, salespeople would spend up to two-thirds of their time on non-selling tasks – things like internal meetings, research, and follow-up admin work. AI has since stepped in to handle much of this legwork, freeing up their time to focus on what really matters: consultative selling and influencing clients.

Tools like Gong, which we use ourselves here at SocialTalent, are helping sales teams automate everything from note-taking to follow-ups, leaving them more time to do what they’re best at – selling. The impact is significant and the leader from AWS explained that it’s allowed their team to spend more time interacting with customers and closing deals, which is really where the value lies.

Now, if we look at recruitment, we see a lot of similarities. Just like sales, recruiters spend an enormous amount of time on tasks that don’t involve engaging candidates – admin work, market research, and scheduling interviews, to name a few. AI can help alleviate this burden. Even something as simple as using ChatGPT to research candidates or roles can shave hours off a recruiter’s workload. And that time? It’s now free to focus on building relationships and influencing hiring managers, which is where recruiters’ real value comes into play.

The key takeaway from the sales world is this: AI doesn’t replace the human element – it amplifies it. By automating repetitive tasks, AI gives recruiters more time to focus on the high-value, human side of the process.

Learning from Engineering: AI’s Role in Productivity, Quality, and Learning

We also had a chance to hear from a former Microsoft engineering leader who shared three key areas where AI is making a real impact in their field: productivity, quality, and learning.

While many expected AI to replace coders, the reality is more nuanced. AI is excellent for certain tasks, like writing unit test cases or handling front-end code, but it’s not replacing back-end coders any time soon. The key is understanding which areas benefit from AI and which still require human expertise.

Interestingly, AI has also been a game-changer for learning. This leader explained that junior engineers, using AI tools like ChatGPT, can now reach the skill level of mid-level engineers in 18 months – a process that used to take 5-7 years. That kind of acceleration is a game-changer for any industry.

So how does this apply to recruitment? AI can enhance productivity by automating tasks like scheduling or screening, and it can improve quality by giving recruiters more time to focus on their core strengths. But where I think it gets really exciting is in the learning space. We’ve already started looking at ways to use AI at SocialTalent to scale L&D for our users, for example. Imagine giving tens of thousands of learners real-time feedback on their interview techniques or sourcing strategies. That’s the kind of innovation we’re driving that can accelerate recruiter development in the same way AI is doing for engineers.

Seeing Automation in Full Force

Later in the day, we heard from 7-Eleven and Compass, two companies that have fully embraced AI to automate the recruitment process completely. Both organizations, which hire vast numbers of hourly workers, have implemented AI-powered systems to handle their entire recruitment workflows.

Compass, for example, reduced their time to hire from 11 days to just 3 days by automating the process. That speed meant they were able to hire candidates they would’ve lost to competitors simply because they were too slow. And the result? They didn’t just hire faster; they also hired better. Candidate satisfaction scores went up, costs went down, and the quality of hires improved significantly.

It’s important to note that this wasn’t just about efficiency – they cut 300 contractor recruiter roles in the process. That’s a massive cost saving, but it also reshapes the way we think about recruitment teams. Automation, in some cases, doesn’t just make recruiters more efficient—it changes the structure and scale of recruitment teams altogether.

Now, I’m not saying this is good or bad – it’s just the reality of where automation is taking us. And for businesses hiring large volumes of hourly workers, it’s an attractive model. But here’s the thing: just because automation works at this level doesn’t mean it applies across the board. There are lessons to be learned, but we need to be mindful of where automation works best.

The McDonald’s Analogy: Automation Where It Counts

Here’s an analogy I used with the group when we were discussing this idea of balance: Think about McDonald’s.

Most of us have walked into a McDonald’s and used one of those big touchscreen kiosks. You punch in your order, pay, and then go pick it up. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it works. But would that system fly in a Michelin-star restaurant? No chance. When you’re dining somewhere premium, you want the full experience – a waiter recommending dishes, explaining the menu, and giving that personal touch. But it’s interesting to note that even in that setting, I’d still prefer the bill to be automated in some way. Why hang around waiting for someone to bring it when you’re ready to go?! Ultimately, it can sometimes even sour an experience!

Recruitment is much the same. For high-volume, hourly roles—think retail, hospitality, or manual labor – full automation can work beautifully. The process is fairly standard, and AI can handle it from start to finish without compromising the quality of the hire. But for more complex, high-skilled roles? You need that human touch.

That said, there are still parts of the process that can be automated. Interview scheduling, programmatic advertising, or transcribing interview notes – these are areas where automation can make a real difference. But when it comes to building relationships with top talent or assessing highly nuanced skills, it’s the human interaction that seals the deal.

The trick is knowing where to draw the line. Where do we automate, and where do we lean into the human touch? What parts are high tech and what parts are high touch?

Bringing It All Together: Learning from Other Sectors

The big takeaway for me from RLL50 wasn’t just about how AI is going to change recruitment, but how much we can learn from other industries that are already further down this road.

Sales teams are using AI to strip out admin and focus more on what they do best – selling. Engineering teams are leveraging AI to boost productivity and accelerate learning. And companies like 7-Eleven and Compass are using full automation to transform how they hire at scale.

So, as recruitment leaders, we need to be asking ourselves: Where can AI make the biggest impact in our processes? And more importantly, what can we learn from the sales, engineering, marketing, and operations teams in our own businesses that are already using AI to its fullest potential?

AI isn’t going anywhere, and those who figure out how to use it smartly, by combining automation with human expertise, will be the ones leading the charge into the future of hiring.

This article originally appeared in Johnny Campbell’s Talent Leadership Insights LinkedIn newsletter. Click here to subscribe!