4 New Ways to Use AI for Hiring at Your Nonprofit
When it comes to hiring the right talent for your nonprofit, artificial intelligence (AI) can be valuable in a lot of ways. This technology is capable of helping you quickly narrow down a pool of qualified candidates, access valuable candidate insights, personalize your outreach at scale, and more.
What AI can’t do is take over the most human parts of the hiring process, like communicating authentically about what it’s like to work at your organization or assessing whether a person would thrive on your team. Think of AI as your assistant, helping you get there faster and more confidently — and freeing up more time for these important conversations.
Here’s an overview of the top ways HR leaders are using AI for hiring.
AI for hiring: Key trends in the nonprofit space
According to The Future of Recruiting 2024 report from LinkedIn, 62% of recruiting professionals express optimism about AI’s impact on recruitment. The report also found that the top benefits of generative AI for recruiters are:
- It’s faster/easier to write job descriptions
- Automating tasks allows recruiters to spend time on more fulfilling work
- Daily mundane tasks are eliminated
- Overall productivity improves
- It’s faster/easier to engage with candidates
As AI becomes increasingly integrated in hiring tools and processes, it may help to ease some of the challenges nonprofits face around recruiting and retaining the right talent.
How using AI for hiring can help your nonprofit
Choosing the right person to join your team requires thoughtful evaluation and in-depth conversations, and technology will never take that over completely. But the cutting-edge AI features and capabilities being rolled out in many hiring tools can help your team reach key hiring decisions with greater ease, efficiency, and confidence. Here are some ways that AI technology can support your efforts right now.
1. Quickly identify candidates with the right skills for your nonprofit
Narrowing down your initial pool of candidates can be a daunting and time-consuming step in hiring for an open position. Luckily, this is an area where AI can lend an assist.
One of the most compelling strengths of generative AI is its ability to process and analyze massive amounts of data in seconds. Nonprofit talent leaders can use AI to rapidly generate a list of qualified candidates for roles on LinkedIn based on specific queries.
For example, with the new AI-assisted Recruiter 2024, you could enter a conversational prompt like “Find me candidates that match my job description criteria for a Director of Development in California.” Generative AI then pairs with LinkedIn insights to help you find great candidates — and offers recommendations to improve your search.
You can also get Recommended Matches based on similarities to your Ideal Candidate Profile, increasing your access to qualified talent by up to 10%.
2. Surface candidates who are more likely to be open to your outreach
In addition to helping you find candidates who are a good fit, AI can empower you to prioritize those who are most likely to be receptive to your messages. The Likelihood of Interest feature — part of the new candidate profile card in LinkedIn Recruiter — can help you assess this at a glance based on interest signals and job-seeking activities.
By focusing your outreach on those who’ve indicated they are open to work, have expressed interest in your organization, or are actively looking for a new job, you can increase your chances of getting a response.
3. Use automation to scale personalization
If you’re trying to reach a large number of candidates, writing an individual note to each of them might not be practical. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t send outreach that feels relevant and tailored to the recipient.
AI-assisted messaging in Recruiter 2024 allows you to create the first draft of a personalized InMail with a single click. Messages can be customized around attributes such as job location, skills, and workplace type. That’s important, because recruiters experience a 40% increase in InMail acceptance rates on average when candidate outreach is personalized.
In early tests for this feature, nearly three-quarters of recruiters said AI-assisted messaging saves them time. With a strong first draft, you can quickly review the message for accuracy, add a few specific details about your organization and its culture, and hit send.
4. Generate better job descriptions and interview questions
Beyond drafting messages to candidates, you can also leverage generative AI-assisted tools like ChatGPT to create a first draft of your next job post.
“You could create a prompt with a scenario that includes a description of the role, core competencies, and its functional and organizational relevance,” explains Dr. Terri Horton in the LinkedIn Learning course Generative AI in HR. “Ask it to include KPIs and describe the organization's culture, values, purpose, and core beliefs. Now, you'll need to experiment with the prompts… However, the result is that gen AI can create a high-quality job description that resonates deeply with the right candidates.”
Dr. Horton adds that AI can also assist as you develop and refine interview questions for candidates.
“Creating lists of interview questions, particularly competency, behavioral-based, and candidate-specific questions, can be challenging and time-consuming,” she notes. “Gen AI can analyze job descriptions to create customized interview questions. It can also aid in reducing bias and add consistency across interviews.”
Take your nonprofit hiring to the next level with an AI assist
In a complex and fluid nonprofit talent landscape, AI technology is changing the game by enhancing candidate research, discovery, and outreach. And the best part is that these powerful assistive tools are within reach for everyone.
Learn more about discounted, AI-assisted LinkedIn recruiting and hiring solutions for nonprofits to help you save time and stay agile.
