AI has Led to a Tidal Wave of Job Applicants – Can Hiring a Recruiter Help you Stay Afloat?

​I recently heard about a growing trend that’s wreaking havoc in the hiring market – AI augmented job applications. According to numerous sources, job seekers armed with newly emerging AI tools are now applying to jobs at unprecedented rates. They are using AI to submit mass applications, generate multiple versions of their resume, and even write customized cover letters for them. In fact, according to recent data, approximately half of all job seekers are leveraging AI tools during their job search, which has resulted in more than double the number of applicants for any given position.
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And yet, grappling to cope with a huge influx of job applicants to find the right match is not a new topic for hiring managers. Let’s take a look at how we got here and discuss how hiring a recruiter can help you weather the storm! 

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A History Lesson
Today’s hiring woes are due to AI, which makes them unique, but the core problem is not. The same type of challenge in response to a major market disruption has challenged recruiters over and over throughout history. Regardless of the form of disruption, the theme is the same – a company struggles to make the right match as they plow through resumes.

Let’s go back to the mid 1990’s, just as the dotcom bubble was building. That is when the first two major internet job boards got started (HotJobs and Monster). Instead of finding a job opening in a newspaper and responding to that ad by mailing a resume and cover letter, with a few clicks on their computer people could now apply for a job. This offered great efficiency for the job seeker, but suddenly HR departments and companies got flooded with applicants. 

Now let’s go back further to the 1970’s when the word processor was invented. By the 1980’s people could modify a resume and a cover letter in minutes, versus needing to take the time to type a new version on a typewriter. A person could type up a cover letter template on their computer and then keep the core themes and add a sentence or two for each job and mail out a tremendous number of cover letters that looked somewhat customized. They could then respond to numerous job applications in approximately the same amount of time that it would have taken to respond to just one job before. HR departments and companies were overwhelmed with more mail for job opening responses than ever before.

In the last few decades, there have been many technological advances that have made it easier for people seeking a job to indicate their interest to a potential employer. AI is just the newest wave of this same trend. So, this idea or theme that HR departments are flooded and overwhelmed is not new. Similarly, their response is not new either!

How Should Businesses Respond?
If it wasn’t clear before that hiring a recruiter could provide significant business value, it should be now!

A recruiting company can help today’s hiring managers and HR staff work through the influx of resumes as well as conduct their own search for the right candidate. The result is that they can often get a better candidate into the role faster than if a business just searches on their own. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone because while the problem of having too many applicants is one that has existed throughout history, the concept of bringing in a knowledgeable person with more experience to help has been as well!

It’s impossible to know exactly when the concept of external recruiting first started officially, but from what we can tell from old business records, recruitment agencies likely date back to the early 1900’s. My hunch is that it likely dates back much further than that, although in a less formal manner. I imagine that even the earliest civilizations had people who knew just the right person for a task, and voila – a match was made! That was probably the first sign of the value of an external recruiter.

Remember, a recruiter is a person who spends their time getting to know people to find out what they are good at and what do they want to do. Then when they hear of the need, they work to make the match. In fact, that’s why recruiters are sometimes colloquially referred to as career matchmakers. An external recruiter can help the company by providing a few key matches while the company is simultaneously searching on their own, sifting through the clutter they have received from their job postings. Plus, in contingent recruiting the company only pays if they hire the person presented by the recruiter. So, there is no cost to have someone send in the ideal candidate while struggling with the overload of incoming resumes!

Our recruiting team has the experience needed to help you find a great match for your open accounting role or finance position. They listen well to learn what the hiring manager needs, and they know their candidates’ skills and strengths. Contact us today to find out how our accounting and finance recruiters can help you find the right candidate for your needs!

About The Author
Alex de Soto – Recruiting Practice Leader, CFO Selections

​Alex de Soto anchors the CFO Selections search practice and brings over 30 years of experience in accounting, finance, human resources, and executive search to his role as leader of the search team. Since 2008, he has spent most of his time helping CEOs and CFOs find that unique match they seek in a CFO or Controller.
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He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Compass Health, a large community behavioral health organization serving the five northwest counties of Washington. Alex’s years as a Board member, former CPA and CFO, HR consultant, and recruiter provide a unique combination of experiences enabling successful CFO and Controller placements.

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