Is AI Taking Over Hiring? Humanizing the recruiting process with Shaniqua Brown

In today’s episode, we are taking an in-depth look at the fascinating world of artificial intelligence and its significant impact on recruitment. We are thrilled to have Shaniqua Brown joining us, the founder of Elevated TA and a recognized thought leader in the talent acquisition space.

Shaniqua brings with her an impressive wealth of experience, having honed her skills during her tenure at Google and various other tech companies. She is deeply passionate about the transformative potential of innovation and technology in reshaping the hiring process for the better.

Throughout this episode, we will thoroughly explore both the benefits and challenges associated with the integration of AI in recruitment. We will discuss how AI can streamline various recruitment processes, enhance the accuracy of candidate matching, and ultimately improve the overall experience for both employers and candidates alike.

Shaniqua will also share her valuable insights on the critical importance of humanizing AI. She emphasizes the need for technology to complement human efforts rather than replace the essential human element that is so vital in recruitment.

This episode is designed to offer valuable insights for a diverse audience, whether you are a recruiter seeking to enhance your hiring strategies, a job seeker looking to understand the evolving landscape, or simply someone who is curious about the future of work in general.

We invite you to join us as we delve into the opportunities and challenges presented by this rapidly evolving field. Together, we will uncover how AI is not only shaping the recruitment industry but also influencing the broader world of work. Don’t miss this chance to gain a deeper understanding of the role of AI in recruitment and the implications it holds for the future!

 

Transcript:

Mary (00:00.689)
Shaniqua Brown, welcome to Recruiting Insider.

Shaniqua Brown (00:04.404)
Thank you so much for having me today. How are you?

Mary (00:07.344)
Good. Shaniqua is the founder of Elevated TA and co -host, yes, of the From Illumination to Innovation podcast. She leverages her big tech and private sector expertise to transform public sector hiring. As a thought leader and former professional cheerleader, she champions innovation, empowerment, and public service and talent acquisition.

Shaniqua Brown (00:13.14)
Yeah.

Mary (00:36.591)
Today, we’re going to discuss the importance of humanizing AI and recruitment. So Shaniqua, tell us just a little bit about your own career story and how did you get where you are today?

Shaniqua Brown (00:49.972)
Thank you so much, Mary. I’ve been in recruiting for over a decade. I got my start in agency, recruiting agency. I don’t know if anyone listening or if yourself, you’ve ever worked in recruiting agency, but it’s all about smiling and dialing. So I got my start in recruiting agency for about four years. And I remember sitting in my cubicle and I was Googling jobs at Google.

Mary (01:09.646)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (01:18.676)
I wanted to be a Google recruiter at this point because I felt like I learned everything I needed to learn and like, okay, I’m ready for something new. I want to work in -house. And I saw the requirements for the Google recruiter and I just printed them out on my company, the company printer and pinned it on my cubicle. And that was something I was striving for. You walk past my desk, you knew what I wanted. So.

Mary (01:36.075)
Goals! Yep. And it’s not to be here.

Shaniqua Brown (01:47.412)
So, and I just thought like, man, I didn’t have the experience that they were looking for. At that time, Google was hiring tech recruiters, just tech recruiters, you know? And so I was supporting the healthcare revenue cycle at the agency and I moved to Austin, Texas. When I moved here, I went through a life, you know, something personal in life and I was…

I’ve branched out my girlfriends telling them, I think I may need to be back home in Tampa because this isn’t working out. I’m not going to be able to afford to live in Austin. And this is, by the way, this is in 2018. I did not think I was going to be able to afford to live in Austin on my agency salary. So at that point, one of my girlfriends, I think at the time she was working at Amazon, she goes, we live in Silicon Hills. You can definitely.

Mary (02:29.513)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Shaniqua Brown (02:44.308)
get a job with a tech company. Just turn on your LinkedIn and get this together. So it was a recruiter, like shaking a recruiter and saying, you can make this happen. So I turned on my LinkedIn that I was actively looking for a new role. A recruiter reached out to me about a contract at Google. And this contract at Google was a health care, to support their health care and life sciences vertical. And I come from the health care revenue cycle.

Mary (03:03.046)
Mmm.

Shaniqua Brown (03:13.94)
background. So it was Kismet. My experience worked. I interviewed with the team. I got the role and that has honestly just been my experience, my career, just being in the right place at the right time, setting goals and a vision for myself. And from Google, I went on to work at Metta on a contract. I worked for a few startups and I just had an itch of

Mary (03:17.254)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (03:44.532)
I want to take on a new challenge and I want that challenge to be something where I put myself forward. And I started Elevated TA. So that just a dream, an idea, who brought me here to this point.

Mary (03:53.86)
Yeah. Wow.

Mary (04:00.002)
Wow. It’s amazing how everything in life just seems to happen for a reason. That’s happened to me throughout my career too, where I’m like, man, I don’t think I’m going to make it in something or, you know, I interviewed for a position and didn’t receive the offer, but then everything just seems to kind of fall into place.

Shaniqua Brown (04:23.732)
And even when you don’t get the offer, right? It’s honestly something better for you that’s actually meant for you, you know?

Mary (04:30.785)
Yeah, exactly. Every single time, at least in my own experience, it’s been better. Even in the moment, if it doesn’t feel like it, when I look back five years ago, I’m like, thank goodness, this is exactly where I need to be. So could you explain what humanizing AI and recruitment actually means and why it’s an important topic today?

Shaniqua Brown (04:39.028)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (04:45.076)
Right?

Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (04:58.324)
Absolutely, Mary. I actually presented humanizing and AI at social HR camp in Austin this past May. And humanizing AI recruitment to me means integrating the tool AI into the hiring process ultimately to enhance rather than diminish the human element.

And it’s about leveraging AI strengths, like efficiency and like data analytics, while ensuring that we still have the human elements, like empathy, we have fairness and personal judgment. That needs to remain central. And…

This topic is crucial today because as everyone’s using AI from, you know, individuals to corporations, it’s becoming more prevalent, right? And we need to ensure that we don’t lose sight on the human touch that makes recruitment a genuinely personal and impactful experience for the candidates and the organization.

Mary (06:06.14)
Yeah, I love thinking about AI not necessarily as a replacement for recruiters, but more like an assistant on steroids, maybe, you know, instead of replacing the actual human. It’s like, it’s all about using those AI tools. Like you said, use those tools to make the process more efficient and in some cases, even more fair, you know, and I think that you can do this in a way that still prioritizes the human experience.

Shaniqua Brown (06:18.292)
Yes.

Shaniqua Brown (06:30.196)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (06:35.387)
both for the candidate and the recruiter, right?

Shaniqua Brown (06:37.972)
Yeah, 100%. And to me, whenever I hear an individual describe AIS, like taking over a job or the world, I think that they’re missing the mark there because AIS is a tool that we create, humans create it, right? So you can’t replace a human when you create it. But like, I love that you mentioned that it’s a assistant on steroids and recruiters, we have…

Mary (06:56.73)
Yep. Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (07:07.956)
so many jobs into one role and that you really do need an assistant. Yes, you have a scheduler from RecOps. That’s fantastic. But who’s managing your day to day in the role of a recruiter? So I love that you mentioned that it’s more of an assistant because we’re on the same page there.

Mary (07:11.001)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (07:27.8)
Yeah, yeah. So could you dig a little bit deeper into what are some of the critical benefits that AI offers?

Shaniqua Brown (07:36.408)
my gosh, every recruiter out there, AI offers significant benefits in recruitment. Firstly, improving efficiency, automating the repetitive task, resume screening, initial candidate assessment. We all know those repetitive tasks. So true. They’re near and dear to the role.

Mary (07:55.511)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (07:57.972)
And this actually allows recruiters to focus on more strategic initiatives, right? And there was, I’m actually gonna read this. I wrote down this stat. Are you familiar with emphasis?

Mary (08:11.189)
I am, yep. Yep.

Shaniqua Brown (08:12.596)
So the IT consulting firm, they implemented AI in their hiring process and they reported a 60 % reduction in manual screening time after implementing AI. So imagine all the 60 % of your time is given back to your recruiters. Secondly, AI enhances candidate matching using the advanced algorithms and analyzing large data sets.

Google actually used predictive analytics and they have improved their employee retention by 25%. And the last, and I’m sure there’s others, but I want to give you my top three. The last benefit is the AI -driven chat bots, like Mebebot.

Mary (08:51.923)
Wow, that’s amazing.

Mary (08:58.931)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (09:07.188)
So you can use AI driven chat bots that can enhance your candidate or your employee experience. So they can get immediate responses to questions that may be more prevalent in the organization.

Mary (09:26.673)
Yeah, it seems like it can just automate a ton of tasks. Like you said, I mean, resume screening and scheduling things that just are tedious and take a ton of time out of your day. If you can automate something like that, I mean, do it because it’s going to make your life so much better. And it’s also going to help you be able to evaluate those candidates a little bit quicker too. Right. And I think that I’ve also.

Shaniqua Brown (09:39.476)
Alright.

Shaniqua Brown (09:51.668)
Mm -hmm. Great.

Mary (09:54.512)
I’ve read a lot of articles on AI and recruiting lately because it just, it’s something that really is fascinating to me. And it, you know, I’ve seen some articles that have said that it can also analyze resumes based on some predefined criteria, right? So this can actually eliminate some of those unconscious biases that creep into the human decision -making process. And I actually just released an episode a couple of weeks ago around the psychology of interviewing and we discussed.

some of those human biases. So if we can eliminate some of those using AI, even better, right?

Shaniqua Brown (10:28.756)
huh.

And I think this also helps with…

you know, requiring the hiring manager and the recruiters and the interview team to work together to collaborate because you have to establish what are the criteria that we are going to assess the candidates against. And we need that before we go assess the candidates because so we can implement this in the AI. So I think that this is the this tool is going to help not only the assessment process, but also driving the collaboration between

between recruiter and hiring team.

Mary (11:09.2)
Yeah, it can improve the entire candidate experience in that case. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So despite some of these advantages to AI, you know, there’s also some concerns or potential drop -backs to it. So what are some of the main risks or challenges of using AI and recruitment?

Shaniqua Brown (11:12.788)
Yes, yes, 100%.

Shaniqua Brown (11:30.452)
So as a humanist, I’m a human first. I am a social advocate. So this part is near and dear to my heart and to the nine.

want to make sure that we remain cognizant of. So there’s several risk factors and challenges. And one major concern is bias, right? Because AI systems can perpetuate existing biases found in the training data. Now,

Most people know about what that Amazon had to scrap their AI recruiting tool because it showed bias against women. And the reason it showed bias against women when they were training the data set at the time, tech was heavily male skewed. So they were feeding and training the AI system with resumes that had male names. So when,

Mary (12:30.89)
Shaniqua Brown (12:32.756)
being a woman’s resume would come through with a woman sounding, hey, they would be rejected. So bias, that’s something that’s really huge there. Another challenge is the transparency in the decision -making process. So.

Mary (12:37.226)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (12:55.028)
we don’t know how AI is making decisions. And that could lead to mistrust among candidates that are going through the process, right? And that could negatively impact your employee branding.

Mary (12:58.538)
Yeah.

Mary (13:05.226)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (13:11.988)
Another one that comes to mind is the over -reliance on AI. And when we over -rely on a tool, especially AI, we’re now diminishing the human element of recruitment, going back to empathy, fairness, and personal judgment. There was a study that found that more junior -level employees,

Mary (13:27.85)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (13:41.716)
when they were unfamiliar with the results, instead of digging in deeper into the finding that AI provided, they would just go with it and it could be wrong.

Mary (13:56.874)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (13:57.076)
Whereas a senior level employee, they’re more tenured in the space. They have more understanding of what they’re doing, what the job entails and what they’re looking for. They were less reliant on AI. In the same example, if AI gave them information, if they saw that something was off, they would look further into it outside of AI. They would do more research within the intranet of the company or ask a peer. They would do more.

Mary (14:19.018)
Mm.

Mary (14:24.81)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (14:26.982)
and then also highlight that it is incorrect. And then the, so I think it’s important, you know, to ensure that teams are over relying on AI is to ensure that you have a strong mix between tenure on your team. And then the final risk factor here is privacy concerns. And they can arise because,

Mary (14:50.346)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (14:53.684)
the AI tools, you’re using a lot of data, right? And improper handling of the data could lead to data breaches and even misuse from the company. So transparency is gonna be required here for the misuse of data.

Mary (15:08.266)
Yeah. Yeah. I want to kind of go back to one thing that you said about, you know, we don’t really know how AI is selecting these candidates. And that’s kind of a scary thought, you know, and I think that that reinforces why the next point, why we shouldn’t be so reliant on it, because it can actually give us information.

that’s not accurate. It can give us biased information. Like you said, technology is definitely not perfect. I think most of us know that. You know, an AI, it really, it’s no different. It has its flaws, even though it can be incredible and it can be time -saving, it can still give us information that just doesn’t make sense. And the AI algorithms are just seemingly so complex. And so, you know, sometimes it makes it…

Shaniqua Brown (15:41.844)
Right.

Shaniqua Brown (15:47.924)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (16:03.85)
really hard to understand how they do arrive at certain decisions, especially about candidates. And it also does really thrive on data, like you said. So at Google, where they’re giving it all of these resumes with male names, and so now it’s spitting out any resume. If you have a female sounding name, you have no chance at all. I guess it kind of plays into my next question of how can companies

Shaniqua Brown (16:07.508)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Mary (16:33.626)
really ensure that they’re using AI ethically and transparently in their hiring process.

Shaniqua Brown (16:40.18)
Yeah, so I do want to call out that Google was not the company, it was Amazon.

Mary (16:46.17)
Sorry, it was Amazon. I was, yep, as I was saying that, I was like, actually, I think it’s Amazon. Yep. Thank you for correcting that. Sorry, Google.

Shaniqua Brown (16:50.164)
As a Zoogler, I want to be transparent. We love you Google. So I would say ethically, to use AI, companies should be transparent from the start and clear about how they’re using AI tools and how candidates’ data is being processed. And if I’m not mistaken, I believe the…

the EU and well, UK, Europe requires like you to be clear about privacy, like the data that you’re using, as well as the state of California. So in the US specifically.

Mary (17:24.505)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (17:36.788)
I’m curious to see how companies are going to respond to how companies are using AI. Are they reporting that in California? So data transparency is going to be very important. And this transparency builds trust and allows for accountability. Because if I don’t know that you’re using AI in your hiring process and there’s a data breach with your company, I’m assuming that it’s like whatever customers you have.

Mary (17:45.849)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (18:06.694)
I’m not assuming that my data is tied into that as a candidate. And then the second is regular audits of the AI system to detect and correct biases. So with the case of Amazon, imagine if they would have every week or month or bimonthly checked to see like, well, how like, it looks, this is odd. There’s…

10 candidates that we hired and only one is a woman, let’s go back and dig into what has happened here. Is it because of the AI tools that we’re using? And this kind of post -mortem, recruiters already do, right? I’m sure you’ve done that before in the past when you’re looking through your pass -through rates data and you’re wanting to understand why these candidates are dropping off. Like, why do we have such a low pass -through rate? So the investigations,

Mary (18:53.433)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (19:06.31)
let’s bring that into the usage of our new tool. And then this is super important, human oversight.

I am a firm believer that a tool should not make human decisions. So AI again should support but not replace human judgment. And companies can create a more fair and more effective recruitment process by combining AI’s capabilities with human insight.

Mary (19:38.009)
Yeah. So where do you think the best, what do you think that would be the best way to alert a job seeker that AI is being used? Is it right in the beginning before they fill out the application? Is it during the interview process itself? When’s, when’s the best time for that?

Shaniqua Brown (20:00.372)
This is the first time I’ve been asked this question. So Mary, this is a great question. Thinking about it, for me, I’m thinking the employer branding is a great way. The perspective, the careers page, right? I know when I worked at Google, our careers page informed candidates how we interview.

Mary (20:16.441)
Mm -hmm, yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (20:25.3)
I think that would be a great place to build that trust and credibility initially. As we’re talking about the interview process, what you can expect, also stating that we include AI in these stages of the process. I think that’s important. I could empathize with the company view of potential backlash of…

more candidates possibly coming out saying I was discriminated against. But I think that’s par for the course because you and I are both recruiting professionals and we know before AI was used in recruitment so heavily that candidates still felt like they were being biased against. So I believe that we should overcome that fear and then double down on the ethical use internally of AI.

Mary (21:08.153)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Mary (21:20.889)
That is an interesting point. I wonder if moving forward like 10 years into the future, if there’ll be legal cases where employees who are interviewing are like, Hey, I was discriminated against with this AI tool and they go after these employers. That’s kind of an interesting thought that I hadn’t hadn’t really thought about prior to this conversation. Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (21:34.26)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (21:43.604)
Right. And I honestly believe that would be great because now we have new case law. And if AI is using data, then great, they can sweep that case law in and course correct. I would view that as an opportunity for the tool, the company, and how they use it to become better.

Mary (21:48.793)
Mm -hmm.

Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (22:05.844)
Maybe that’s my optimistic view and I’m not the company that’s being sued so I can have that view. But yeah, what do you think about that though? Like where would you ask, like if you were a candidate, where would you want to see or learn that the company is using AI?

Mary (22:09.593)
Hehehehe

Mary (22:18.745)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (22:24.377)
I like what you said about employee branding, like right on the careers page before I even apply to the position. I think it would be nice to know that my resume is being sorted by AI with a human overseeing it. So maybe, you know, somewhere on the careers page where you can go a little bit deeper into what that means exactly too, because I think a lot of us don’t really know, you know, we’re like, yeah, AI is making it.

Shaniqua Brown (22:48.372)
Right.

Mary (22:53.881)
really streamlined for recruiters to sort and view all of these resumes, but what exactly does that mean? So maybe just some fine print there.

Shaniqua Brown (23:03.508)
for sure. And I think that companies have figured out a way to share with their clients how they’re using AI to make their processes better for the customer. And I’m confident we can do the same thing on the candidate side.

Mary (23:13.241)
Yeah.

Mary (23:16.953)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yep, yep, absolutely. So let’s dig a little bit deeper into some of the practical steps that organizations can take to really balance AI’s efficiency with the need to maintain that human touch and recruitment.

Shaniqua Brown (23:36.308)
So I believe that there’s several steps that we can take to balance AI efficiency with human touch. And the first one that comes to mind for me is…

AI can handle the repetitive task and the data intensive task. So I think allowing human recruiters to focus on building relationships with their hiring partners, the interview teams, their peers, cross -functional groups. And…

Mary (23:49.753)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (24:07.349)
understanding candidate nuances. Like that’s where I see that like recruiters could then balance, you know. And then I think ensuring that AI driven decisions are.

Mary (24:10.009)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (24:15.097)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (24:20.564)
always reviewed by a human recruiter who can then incorporate the human elements, who can then use their human judgment, who can use empathy because you may recruiters often run into situations where maybe this person wasn’t a hundred percent of what we were looking for on paper but they have these soft skills that make up for it.

So being able to review it, a human to review because we understand those nuances when hiring.

Mary (24:57.177)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (24:58.612)
And it’s important to train and upscale HR teams and recruiting teams, rec ops teams to understand AI’s capabilities and limitations. That is vital. We can’t just implement a tool and then tell everyone to figure it out on their own. I mean, I am confident that they will, but how will they?

Mary (25:02.393)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (25:09.785)
Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (25:22.1)
And transparency, going back to that with candidates about using AI and the role it plays within the hiring process is essential because you want to under, like with AI.

removing from the situation, candidates deserve to understand how they’re being evaluated so they can prepare for the interview, just like the company prepares for the interview. We understand what we’re looking for to be create interview questions so we know how to assess the candidates, right? So that is only fair. And then lastly, the continuous monitoring of AI and any updates to the system to ensure that they’re functioning as intended.

Mary (25:46.457)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (26:11.814)
And this helps make it, you know, in all, all these steps help make AI enhance the recruitment process rather than detracting from the recruitment process.

Mary (26:25.273)
Yeah, it really allows recruiters to focus on areas where they can actually enhance the entire recruitment process and really use some of these AI tools to make everything better. And I completely agree. I think that moving forward, companies are going to have to start investing in training their HR team and their hiring managers on some of these tools so that they can best use them.

Shaniqua Brown (26:32.276)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (26:54.65)
during the process. Yeah. So many of our listeners today, you know, they’re on the other side, right? They’re job seekers. What should they be doing now to stand out as a top candidate, especially when these AI tools are integrated into the hiring process?

Shaniqua Brown (26:55.124)
Great.

Shaniqua Brown (27:13.684)
So this is my favorite question because I think that what I’ve seen recently is that folks are all using the same verbiage on their resume if I’m a sales professional.

Mary (27:17.593)
Hehehehe.

Shaniqua Brown (27:33.524)
Right. I feel like every sales professional has like the same resume and that’s by design, right. They want to make it through the resume screening and I don’t fault them for that.

Mary (27:37.209)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mary (27:44.025)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (27:46.036)
But what I share with folks like any job seekers that I come across is so we’ll first start with yourself Who are you? What do you possess? What value do you like? What are your dreams? What are your core values? What are your aspirations? What’s your value at like who are you and then once you sit with that then? Frame your resume as such because we have if you have all the same resumes. We’re just feeding AI This is what a resume should look like, you know?

Mary (28:13.269)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (28:15.942)
And then as a recruiter, when I’m looking at a resume, I’m reading, this is like an employee branding. There, you know, it’s their branding. So I want to be able to get to know you, who you are, what you’re doing, what you’re looking for. So if this role aligns, fantastic. If I see that maybe in your resume, this role could be too junior, I’m gonna tell you about it. But I think to stand out is to be unique.

Mary (28:38.485)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (28:42.964)
Be yourself, know who you are and what you have to offer. And then that will also help you like curate a list of companies or roles that you want to look for versus spraying and praying. So I think to actually in recruiting agency days, we call this cherry picking. You wanna cherry pick the roles that you want because now you know who you are being selective. So.

Mary (28:56.306)
Yeah. Yep. Mm -hmm.

Mary (29:07.586)
Yeah. Yeah, you have to kind of think of yourself as a product and you’re trying to sell that product. So what, what’s your unique value? What’s going to make you stand out for that position and try to figure out how to frame your resume around that. And you know, the other thing that I like to encourage job seekers to do is really think about what challenges that employer is facing.

Shaniqua Brown (29:18.068)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (29:37.362)
and how they could step in and solve that challenge. What unique skills do you bring, whether it’s a hard skill or a soft skill, and how can you step in and solve something that your potential supervisor is losing sleep over, right? Yeah.

Shaniqua Brown (29:45.556)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (29:51.796)
Absolutely, Mary. And I love that. And you can, a candidate can do that. A job seeker can do that when they’re selective about what kind of role they want, what companies they want to work for. I met someone who applied to over a thousand jobs, like a thousand different companies, a thousand jobs. And I go.

Mary (30:11.247)
Cheers.

Shaniqua Brown (30:14.804)
If they, like, I love your approach because that is very thoughtful, you are obviously invested, they could not do that for a thousand companies. Not at all. Yeah, I love that.

Mary (30:22.671)
No, you can’t. It’s impossible. Yeah. Yeah. There are AI tools in the job search that where you basically it’s automating hundreds and hundreds of applications. So it’s customizing your resume and sending it out to hundreds, thousands of different positions that you may or may not qualify for. And so this is, you know, a little bit off topic, but it’s still, it’s, you know, it.

affects the recruitment process and that inundation that these recruiters feel day in and day out, especially over the last year where the market’s been just so incredibly competitive. Now they have these AI bots on the other side, on the job search side that are spray and pray, all of these resumes, spraying and praying and spraying and praying, and they may not even qualify at all for the position, yet these bots are sending their applications in.

Shaniqua Brown (31:20.02)
It is a colossal waste of that individuals like everyone’s side.

Mary (31:24.555)
Yeah, everyone’s time. Yeah. Take your time. Figure out what your value proposition is and figure out a way to stand out. So what are the top three takeaways from our conversation today?

Shaniqua Brown (31:30.164)
Mm -hmm.

Shaniqua Brown (31:37.652)
Top three takeaways, one, AI can really enhance recruiters, like a recruiting team’s life, the workflow. And let me say that again. So, top three takeaways, AI is a tool. AI will help enhance the recruitment process for recruitment teams.

Mary (31:52.907)
Yo!

Shaniqua Brown (32:07.188)
It’s important to upskill the hiring teams, the recruiting teams that are using it. And it’s important to monitor these tools as well. And then lastly, AI should not replace the human element and the human selection of your candidates, but it is there to help.

Mary (32:28.775)
Yeah. So yes, use the tools, but make sure that you’re providing the training that the recruitment team needs and you’re continuously monitoring it to make sure that it’s flowing well. I love that. So what are you up to now and where can we find you on social media?

Shaniqua Brown (32:44.788)
So with Elevated TA, we are transitioning to support government, public sector, and the federal contracts.

I am a American citizen and taxpayer, so I am very driven to ensure that we have reduced time to hire in the government space. I want us to remain a leader in politics and the economy. So how can we do that if we are competing with the private sector for the best talent or…

Mary (33:05.511)
Eh.

Shaniqua Brown (33:19.476)
egregious time to hire. So that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re transitioning from the private sector to the public sector, bringing our prowess there. And your listeners can find me on LinkedIn at Elevated TA, or you can type in my name, Shaniqua Brown, and on TikTok and Instagram at the talentstrategies. And my website is elevatedta .com.

Mary (33:48.131)
Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on today, Shaniqua.

Shaniqua Brown (33:51.604)
It was wonderful. Thank you so much for having me today, Mary.