Role of Artificial Intelligence While Hiring through Referral Recruitment: A Conceptual Review and Model for Future Research

The tech-town is currently all about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its role in each field make the organizations witness to be an effective one. Like yet another field, AI has its role to play in recruitment field under human resources activities also. This study attempts to identify the need for AI in recruitment and also analyzes whether there exists a relationship between it and referral recruitment. There are so many evidences that has been propagating about the usefulness of AI and that none can deny it. Especially, it is said that the recruiters can feel less burdened after evolving AI as a part of hiring initiative. The intriguing uses of AI when it is applied in referral recruitment is envisaged in this study to enable the recruiter to save time, cost and efforts while hiring. The use and application of AI in forms of chatbots on webpages and screening through use of algorithms are evidences that it is used in a sub optimal way in organizations. Those trends that are to be traced out from the potential or new hires of this era are identified and a conceptual review is being attempted to be made through this study. The primary objective of the study is to identify the trends in recruitment and evolve a conceptual model integrating the forms of AI with the referral source of recruitment. The study includes the pre-study conducted among administrative employees to gauge the referral source of recruitment effectiveness. With the results of the pre-study conducted the feasibility of applying forms of AI in a conceptual view is formulated. Those statistical tool for analysis of pre-study has been used to test the relationship between the AI and referral recruitment. Further the conceptual review is made with the application of SPSS and SEM model suiting the need of the study. This would ensure if the organizations would be a beneficiary in terms of coping with the need for effective referral recruitment on one side and on the other hand those researchers who would like to apply it for the other types of recruitment sources can further conduct study and gauge the effectiveness. The conceptual review would be suiting those organizations which would opt the referral source of recruitment while hiring and if they have a strong technical support in terms of evolving AI and other requirement such that monetary, technological feasibility and support, team’s cooperation and pre-investment plan.