How to Reduce Time-To-Hire With AI: A Practical Approach

This doesn’t make much sense: We're making huge advances in recruitment technology, and there’s more candidate availability on the job market than there has been in years.

So why is it taking longer than ever for recruiters to hire the right candidates?

There are a few reasons, some of which are beyond our control. However, there are steps in the recruitment process that can be managed more effectively, and that’s what we’ll cover today.

Why time-to-hire is increasing

As mentioned, recruiters are taking a longer time to find and hire the best candidates.

One main reason for this is the increasing focus on quality of hire. Obviously, hiring candidates who fit the role better is a good thing, so prioritizing quality over speed makes sense.

But there are also factors that are unnecessarily slowing down the hiring process. For example, the linear structure of the recruitment process.

For decades, recruiters have worked in a linear fashion: They have an intake call with a hiring manager, define the job requirements, post the job openings, and then start sourcing and interviewing candidates. Next, they shortlist the right candidates, ensure they fit the company culture, and hire the best talent.

All these steps happen one after the other. In between, recruiters handle admin tasks: debriefing meetings, updating the ATS with candidate data, writing follow-up messages, and so on.

However, recruiters rarely handle just one open position at a time. Usually, they manage the screening process for multiple roles and candidates simultaneously, which adds to the number of intakes, interviews, and admin tasks they perform daily.

These two factors—the linear process and heavy admin workload—significantly extend the length of the recruitment process, adding a varying number of days to an already slow time-to-hire.

Additionally, there's often unnecessary complexity added to roles that don’t require so many filters and interview rounds.

Some hiring managers want candidates to be screened, complete skill tests and assessments, do test cases, and then have interviews with the recruiter, the hiring manager, and team members, leading to 5-6 interview rounds in total.

Needless to say, no candidate wants to jump through so many hoops to get a job offer. Many drop out in the early stages of the process, forcing recruiters to replace them with more candidates to have more options to choose from. Again, this extends the amount of time needed for filling each open position.

Finally, various surveys show that, to hire in the current market, recruiters have to do much more for each hire.

With more candidates on the market, applications per hire have increased by 178% between 2021 and 2023. And with more complex roles to fill, recruiters are spending 5-10 more hours on interviews now than they did in 2021.

All these factors contribute to long hiring processes and a poor experience for both recruiters and candidates.

So, that’s the problem. But what about the solution?

Let’s look into how—and why—AI can help shorten the recruitment process and decrease time-to-hire.

How AI can help decrease time-to-hire

The time it takes to hire an ideal candidate varies for every company because each employer has its own hiring process and recruitment strategies. Therefore, how you speed up your hiring time will largely depend on your specific recruitment approach.

There are a few key areas where AI can help reduce hiring time.

Let’s first cover the theory of this, then we’ll look into the practical steps you can take to shorten your talent acquisition process with the help of artificial intelligence.

Moving from a linear to an integrated process

Traditionally, recruitment has followed a linear structure, with each stage—sourcing, screening, interviewing, and selecting—happening one after the other.

AI allows companies to break away from this slow, sequential method and adopt a more integrated approach, where several stages can occur in parallel.

For example, an AI assistant can join recruiters in interviews, take notes, and then fill the ATS with candidate information while the recruiter moves on to the next interview.

AI can instantly match job openings with top talent as applications come in, ensuring that the most relevant candidates are prioritized for review.

While recruiters are conducting interviews for one role, the AI can continuously search for additional candidates, updating the talent pool in real time. This allows for constant, proactive sourcing and screening without waiting until the current pool is exhausted.

AI can run background checks in parallel, verifying a candidate's history while other steps, like interviews, proceed. This removes the wait time and speeds up decision-making. Moreover, AI can automate the entire interview scheduling process by finding common availability between candidates and interviewers, allowing recruiters to focus on interviews instead of logistics.

By handling multiple steps concurrently, AI eliminates unnecessary delays and enables recruiters to move candidates through the pipeline much faster, speeding up the overall time-to-hire.

Automating repetitive tasks

A major advantage of AI in recruitment is its ability to automate time-consuming, repetitive tasks.

Activities like summarizing meetings, transferring notes to the ATS, resume screening, interview scheduling, or sending follow-up emails can be handled by AI-powered tools, freeing recruiters to focus on conversations and strategic decision-making.

AI algorithms can quickly sift through thousands of resumes to identify top candidates based on specific skills and experiences, cutting down hours of manual labor.

Similarly, AI-driven communication tools can manage candidate engagement, answering basic inquiries and providing timely updates, keeping candidates informed without the recruiter needing to intervene at every step.

In addition, generative AI tools can now take over the creation of job descriptions and candidate profiles or write-ups, a task previously considered inherently human. Nearly all steps in the recruitment process can be automated with AI—and there’s no reason not to delegate these tasks to technology when the accuracy is often better, and the output is just as good as if handled by a human.

As you can see, AI-driven automation can reduce the administrative workload for recruiters and streamline the hiring process for faster placements without sacrificing the quality of hire.

Enhancing the recruiter experience

Although often overlooked as a factor in time-to-hire, the recruiter experience is another aspect that can be improved with the help of AI, contributing to faster hires.

A mentally drained recruiter will inevitably work slower, which can prolong the process. AI helps enhance the recruiter experience by reducing administrative burdens and allowing them to focus on higher-value activities.

By automating repetitive tasks and minimizing the context switching, AI not only frees up a recruiter’s time, but protects their mental energy too. This enables recruiters to maintain focus and make quicker, more informed decisions.

With more time to engage with top candidates and refine their selection strategies, recruiters can work more efficiently. A more energized and efficient recruiter is key to streamlining the recruitment process.

Deciding where to employ AI in your recruitment process

All right, now let’s look at your hiring process. How do you know where to target to speed up hiring time? Follow these steps to identify where you can make a difference.

Map out your process to identify bottlenecks

Map out your current hiring process and pinpoint steps that take too long. You can easily do this by checking your applicant tracking system’s analytics. There, you’ll find all the important recruitment metrics and how they’re currently performing for you.

Try to get to the bottom of any delays. Is it a people problem—meaning are team members overloaded or lacking necessary skills? Or is your data flow broken somewhere? Are you lacking automation? Is there too much administrative work being done by recruiters in between meetings?

Understanding the root causes will help you identify where to focus your efforts for improvement.

Categorize solutions

Next, closely examine those time-consuming tasks with slower-than-average completion times and categorize them based on their nature and potential for improvement:

1. Automatable tasks: Identify tasks that are repetitive and rule-based, such as resume screening or scheduling interviews. These are ideal candidates for automation, allowing AI to take over and streamline the process.
2. Delegable tasks: Look for tasks that require human judgment but can be assisted by gen AI tools. For example, taking meeting notes, filling in the ATS, creating candidate presentations or writing candidate communication can be fully or partially automated with AI assistants.
3. Manual tasks: Recognize tasks that must be managed manually, such as intake calls, candidate interviews, or nuanced decision-making. Focus on optimizing these by improving workflows or training.
4. Special tasks: Pinpoint tasks that slow down the process but don’t fit neatly into the above categories. These might include unique or ad-hoc requests that require immediate attention or specific expertise. Consider whether these tasks can be streamlined, restructured, or delegated to specialized team members to minimize delays.

By categorizing tasks this way, you can clearly identify where to implement automation, delegate responsibilities, and enhance overall efficiency in your hiring process.

Integrate the right technology

For AI to handle the complex tasks needed to reduce the average time to hire, it must be tightly integrated into the recruitment software you use. Just like humans, AI requires context to perform effectively.

Integrating your chosen AI technology with your recruiting platform will give your AI assistant access to all the same information you have, allowing it to function like a round-the-clock member of your hiring team.

For example, Carv can integrate with your calendar to join meetings and take notes, then handle follow-up tasks from those meetings, such as summarizing discussions, writing job descriptions, or creating candidate write-ups.

Additionally, it integrates with the ATS, ensuring that all candidate information and job details can be automatically pushed to the applicant tracking system—with or without human oversight.

The depth of integration will depend on your tech stack and preferences. You can read more here: Implementing AI in Recruitment: A Framework to Get You Started.

Time-consuming steps of the hiring process AI can take over

Once you’ve identified which steps you need to speed up and integrated technology that can support your requirements, you can start delegating tasks to your AI assistant. Here are some potential tasks that AI can take over.

1. Interview scheduling

Scheduling interviews manually can consume unnecessary time, especially with multiple interviewers involved. Checking calendars and emailing candidates back and forth can significantly delay the hiring process.

Integrating a scheduling tool can greatly help in reducing time-to-hire. These tools sync with both candidates’ and hiring team members’ calendars, suggesting available time slots automatically and minimizing wasted time.

2.  Job posting

Distributing job ads across LinkedIn, job boards, and other platforms can consume a lot of recruiter time, especially when handling multiple open roles. Just deciding where to post and logging into each site slows you down unnecessarily.

AI-powered tools can automate the entire job-posting process. These tools not only post ads but also scan social media profiles to find top candidates relevant to your roles, ensuring your ads reach those most likely to apply.

3. Candidate comms

Slow communication can deter great candidates, so automating some messaging can help shorten your total time to hire while relieving your recruitment team of some administrative burdens.

Here are types of comms you can delegate to AI:

1. Interview invites - Set a workflow trigger in your ATS to automate interview invites to shortlisted candidates. Use a predefined template, but add some personalized notes from based on the candidate profile, with the help of AI.
2. Interview follow-ups - Sending individual feedback to every candidate isn’t always feasible, but ghosting contributes to a terrible candidate experience and can damage your employer brand. Automation can handle this communication sensitively, keeping the door open. If integrated with your ATS, AI can generate tailored post-interview emails based on interview content and application status.
3. Rejection emails or offer letters - For candidates who reach the end of your application process, you can use AI to generate both rejection messages and personalized offer letters. AI can ensure the emails convey enough empathy and professionalism to encourage candidates to remain in your talent pool.
4. Onboarding email - There’s a lot of detail that goes into onboarding emails too. AI can autogenerate these emails using the job description and a basic template - all you need to do is scan through to ensure everything looks correct and send the comms straight to your new hire.  

4. Sourcing

When recruiting for hard-to-fill roles, sourcing candidates can significantly slow your hiring process. However, you can now delegate this task to AI, generating a quality longlist of potential candidates in just minutes—saving you days.

AI tools can integrate with social platforms, candidate databases, and your ATS to automate the entire sourcing process. Simply provide the AI with the necessary information to identify your ideal candidates, and it will deliver a steady stream of quality candidates for your talent pipeline.

5. Screening  

As mentioned earlier, one major reason time-to-hire isn’t decreasing, despite a wealth of candidates, is simply that there are too many applicants. Studies show that up to 250 job seekers apply for each new corporate job posting, but only about 30% are actually qualified.

By integrating a tool like Carv with your ATS, you can delegate the candidate screening process to AI.

For instance, the Carv AI assistant can conduct prescreening calls or message candidates via WhatsApp to filter out non-qualified applicants, ultimately presenting you with a shortlist of qualified candidates.

6. Updating your ATS

Last but not least, AI can take over the most hated of all recruitment admin tasks: Updating the ATS.

Many recruiters have a love-hate relationship with their applicant tracking system, but without proper data hygiene, a lot of their effort will be wasted, as they’ll have to source and interview from scratch for every new open role.

AI assistants like Carv can automatically populate your ATS records with candidate data after each screening call or interview. All you need to do is double-check if the AI captured all the information you wanted.

This doesn’t only speed the interview process up — it also ensures the data that’s added to the ATS is error free and up-to-date.

Over to you

As you can see, there are several ways to shorten your time to hire, and AI can play a crucial role in streamlining the process—from reducing admin tasks to decentralizing candidate sourcing and enhancing communication.

If you’re curious to see how this can impact your recruitment, get started with Carv for free today or book a demo, and we’ll show you around!