AI in PR Recruitment: Help or Hindrance?

Three years ago, no-one had heard of ChatGPT. Now, generative AI has shaken up nearly every industry. PR and comms teams are harnessing the technology, even while navigating the questions it raises about ethics and creativity. But when it comes to hiring, can AI find you the perfect candidate?

Help: How AI can support the PR recruitment process

  • Searching far and wide

Specialist AI tools have the power to scan large data sets and identify more candidates with relevant industry experience. This can broaden and enhance your talent pool, while speeding up the search. 

AI can also help you draft clear, engaging job descriptions and adverts, increasing the likelihood of hearing from the right candidates.

  • Sifting through the hopefuls

In-house talent teams and larger agencies often use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to scan, rank, and select CVs. Many of these are now AI-integrated. Some even have a chatbot to automate communication with candidates (although this risks losing the human touch – more on that later).

Smart use of AI improves efficiency and reduces the admin load, but what are the downsides?

Hindrance: How AI makes it harder to hire well

  • ‘Higher quality’ applications can be misleading

Let’s face it: many candidates are using programmes like CoPilot and Claude to draft and finesse their CVs and cover letters. An intelligent use of the tools now available, or cheating? It depends on your point of view. In either case, it does make selection more difficult. 

Now that a good written application is so much easier to produce, the human factor in recruitment becomes paramount.

  • The ‘applicant tsunami’ is real

If you’ve advertised a PR or comms role recently, you might have been surprised by the volume of interest.

Roles on LinkedIn saw 45% more applications in the past year – and AI is driving this. More than half of UK jobseekers (53%) are using it when they apply.

With so many more candidates to sift through, it can quickly become overwhelming.

  • Not sensitive enough

While AI can help find and target potential candidates, it very often needs human judgment to fine-tune the results. A generic B2B technology PR background, for example, can cover a broad range of subsectors, many of which may be irrelevant to a niche role.

Candidates are now wise to keyword matching - which is making more and more CVs look exactly the same. Without speaking to candidates to understand their real stories, skills, and experience, you risk ending up with someone who’s great on paper, but not truly up to par.

Human-to-human: keeping PR and comms personal

There’s a host of crucial people factors in recruiting for agency and in-house PR teams.

This is a human-to-human industry where AI and automation can only go so far. 

Every team has its own unique culture and values. Identifying the candidates best placed to succeed in your environment is one of the trickiest — and most vital — tasks of effective recruitment.

The human touch is also essential to fostering applicants’ interest and commitment to the role. An overly impersonal recruitment process can quickly turn off good candidates. It’s also a missed opportunity to start building a positive relationship with your eventual hire.

Working with a recruitment agency allows you to enhance and deepen the human aspect without taking time away from your busy teams. At PR CROWD, we make a point of engaging in conversations with candidates to get to know them and what makes them tick. Not only do we use our knowledge of the PR and comms industry to assess their skils and experience, we also think carefully about the likely cultural fit with your team and company.

  • The winning formula

AI is an excellent tool for increasing productivity and efficiency in some routine elements of the PR recruitment process. But here’s the real winning formula: spend that saved time on more in-depth human connection and engagement, to get to know candidates better and find your perfect match.

At PR CROWD, we help PR and comms teams find and recruit top talent, with the human touch being an essential part of our process. Find out more.

Gavin Watson