EP141: DKSH - How to Master High-Volume Hiring with AI

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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Lydia: Welcome to another episode of All In Recruitment by Manatal, where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you've liked our content so far, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for our weekly episodes. 

I'm your host, Lydia, and Yihan Lin of DKSH is with us today. Thank you for joining us, Yihan.

Yihan: Thank you, Lydia. It is an absolute pleasure to be here today.

Building Robust TA Programs for Excellence

Lydia: Tell us about your experience in talent acquisition, Yihan. I mean, what key moments might have shaped your expertise or even your interest in staying in talent acquisition?

Yihan: I think two key moments that I want to share. The first one is actually with a mining company [called] Anglo American. So that was really my first experience dealing with systems in the recruiting space. It was going through an enterprise-wide global implementation for the applicant tracking system (ATS). 

So, there were a whole lot of conversations going around pricing, commercial due diligence, looking at the mapping of the processes, and obviously bringing the entire sort of stakeholders on the journey of change management. That was really interesting because the mining sector is traditionally very conservative when it comes to taking baby steps to change. And we are talking about a whole enterprise-wide change within a six-month window. 

The other experience that I think would be something that's more recent. That would be the launch of our AI chatbot Genie. It is something that we launched just towards late Q4 of last year. So, it was really looking at the same thing, pricing of commercial deals, and obviously taking a couple of our market recruiters on that journey of digitalization for recruiting.

Lydia: So, Yihan, in terms of group talent acquisition right now, what are some key areas that you're focusing on?

Yihan: The work here in group TA primarily revolves around how we sort of build and implement robust TA programs to help enhance our core functional competencies for our recruiters in the markets. So, we are talking about over 50 or 60 recruiters that are driving day-to-day recruiting for DKSH, and these programs sort of come to process looks at digitalization which is AI. We could be looking at enablement programs for both our TA and also for our wider business stakeholders. And obviously, the last segment for enabling focus for myself was really looking at operation and excellence, right? So, TA, I think, is primarily sort of being viewed as a more operationally involved kind of HR point of work. So, there remains a lot of effort to sort of streamline and reduce bottlenecks for everybody.

Tackling High-Volume Hiring with Genie

Lydia: In terms of AI, the Genie that you just spoke about, right? So what prompted that exploration of AI solutions for recruitment, particularly in this, as I understand, when we spoke preshow, it was Paradox AI, the platform, right?

Yihan: Yes, it is. So, I think the very first important point you need to identify is what the real recruitment challenges are on the ground, and not because everyone is jumping on the AI bandwagon. 

So, there was a very strong business case, because I think a majority of our roles in DKSH that we hire are actually that mass, high-volume recruitment for the frontline salespeople. We see AI can come in to enhance efficiency and sort of free up potential time for our recruiters to focus on more high-value conversations with the candidates. So, some of the traditional hiring processes that we face in the team will be in the form of recruiters having to spend time scheduling interviews. 

If it is just one or two interviews, it is fine. But we are talking about each recruiter managing 30 or 40 roles, and each role having two interviews. That number just rolls up quite a bit. And obviously, responding to candidates’ repetitive inquiries, for example, What is the process? What is our culture? What are the benefits? So, we see AI coming in a conversational way where we can sort of automate some of these tasks seamlessly across the hiring process, and that helps us to create a faster, more engaging candidate experience for the applicants. 

What stood out for Paradox was really the ability to provide 24/7 support for candidates through a conversational experience and, importantly, conversing with candidates in their local languages. 

So, we actually did the launch for Genie in a couple of our key markets in the Southeast Asian region, the likes of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia. So, connecting with the candidates in their local languages was of utmost importance.

Lydia: In terms of the initial feedback you've gotten since rollout, right? Have there been any areas for improvement or areas that you're looking at in terms of the effectiveness of Genie?

Yihan: I think the initial response for Genie was a bit of a mix. So, we have recruiters and the HR team generally excited about going fully digital. But the response from the business was slightly more lukewarm in the sense that, as usual, they are very comfortable with the way of working. They are very comfortable with receiving candidates for review, right? 

So, by introducing an intermediary, no matter how digital, there was a fear or perception that this was not going to work. So, some of the operational bottlenecks, I think, came from a change management perspective, such as how we are using, and how we sort of enable our business stakeholders to see the value in terms of using something like Genie to help them automate some of their tasks.

Scaling Recruitment Without Sacrificing Experience

Lydia: Now you're speaking of operational bottlenecks, right? So what are those operational bottlenecks that you've identified that so far AI has helped solve, and also, you anticipate AI to solve

Yihan: Let's talk a little bit about response time. Everybody, probably most recruiters, would agree to this. Some candidates or most candidates do not respond instantly, right? So, be it an email or text on WhatsApp, it takes a bit of a to-and-fro to really pinpoint exactly a date where most stakeholders or everyone works for an interview. 

So, from an operational standpoint, calendar management is one issue. Not all hiring managers are active in managing their calendars, for example, blocking out their diaries for interviews, and blocking out their calendars for key activities that they want to focus on. Genie is a platform that helps to sort of overcome some of those calendar management bottlenecks by matching candidate availabilities for interviews. 

Another operational bottleneck that I think helps us solve is really scaling or handling seasonal hiring effectively. Genie was able to manage high applicant volumes without even compromising the candidate experience. So, we’re talking about not just 50 roles or, in project hiring, usually, we would scale to look at 80 to 100 new hires within a short time. That is a lot of work for the recruiters to sort of go through the CVs, arrange their interviews, and the screening process downstream. So, I think having Genie to manage that automated interview scheduling really helps from the operational standpoint. 

I think the last bit would be really coming from a data-driven decision-making process. So, previously, recruiters were very much relying on manual processes for insights, right? Be it a manual Excel recruitment tracker, going through the emails just to see who said what, and what the feedback is. It can be slow, and sometimes it can be subjective as well. So, I think AI provides us with a pure analytics dashboard of real-time candidate interactions. What are the trends? Where are the areas that require quick fixes? It empowers the recruiters to make more informed decisions.

Lydia: So, in terms of the skills or the competencies of a recruiter now with that whole layer being taken care of by AI, what sort of skills and competencies will come with broader usage of AI and recruitment?

Yihan: I think we expect recruiters to focus a little bit more on that stakeholder management piece. So, obviously, as more time is being restored to the recruiters, we want them to spend more time engaging the business, the hiring managers, spending time to provide insights, to provide recommendations in terms of why or how candidates are evolving, providing hiring intelligence, or hiring trends. So, that sort of bridges the role of recruiter from a transactional recruiter into a business partnering or key talent acquisition business partnering kind of role.

Breaking Language Barriers with Multilingual AI

Lydia: Now moving back to the decision-making process in terms of whether or not to adopt AI on such a large scale, how long did it take, and what did it take to reach that decision to adopt Paradox AI and even have Genie as the chatbot?

Yihan: It took us six months to sort of validate why we needed to build a business case for AI. So, it is talking to the markets, talking to recruiters on the ground, the actual recruiters, those hiring that mass volume. What are the pain points? What are the hiring processes, and where are the various points that will sort of benefit from having an intervention from AI? So, that is first. 

Once we have clarity, we actually move towards a time study just to really find out the actual time taken for a recruiter versus if we had Genie helping us to schedule interviews. Obviously, moving to the dollars and cents commercials, there are tons of third-party vendors that offer what Paradox can offer us today. So, it is really speaking and going through various product demos to really shortlist what would actually work for us. 

Importantly, I think part of it is also that chemistry with the product team. You need to be comfortable as a client, feeling that the person who sees a vested interest in really wanting to help you improve your hiring process at your company, versus just being here to make a quick dollar and moving on to the next client.

Lydia: How do candidates typically respond when they interact with Genie during their application process or even the discovery process?

Yihan: Well, I say they love it, to be honest. We have an all-time high interaction above our industry peers. We are trailing at about close to 99%.

Lydia: Is this against your own data, or is it against competitors?

Yihan: Against competitors. 

So we are trailing on 99% of positive interactions with Genie. Some of our industry peers are coming at about 90% to 92%. So I think one of the key reasons is also that language barrier, right? We enabled Genie to talk in 5 to 6 different languages, like Bahasa, traditional Chinese, English, Vietnamese, and obviously, Khmer as well.

So I think, most importantly, it helps us to sort of really nail that from a response perspective.

Reducing Fields to Enhance Candidate Experience

Lydia: Now, in terms of user adoption, obviously, this is new technology. There'll be some getting used to changing of routine for the recruiter and even the mid-level managers and above. What strategies were maybe most effective, or what approaches did you have when it comes to driving that user adoption for this technology?

Yihan: I think one of the most important key takeaways for me is change management, right? And change management starts months before the actual product launch. So, the most your business case would be, you launch, and then you provide that super user support. You go into weekly engagements and communications with downstream processes. But I think what was really important is that you start way beforehand. 

You start engaging your business, the actual hiring managers that will be impacted by the launch, change the way of work. Then, you start engaging the other interviewers who would also be involved, such as the likes of HR business partners who join the interview sessions. I think, going back to that communication as well, it is never too late to over-communicate that. 

So, providing constant updates in terms of what Genie is looking at, how are we truly on the timeline to launch? For example, what is needed from you to come up with the content to sort of engage them from a bite-sized perspective? We provide bite-sized video content in the local languages, such as short one-minute video clips, just for them to really understand what is coming. We even got our market recruiters to use those videos as part of their monthly conversations on hiring and taking the opportunity to insert an advertisement to showcase the genius of arrival. So, I think that change management is really important.

Lydia: So, as I understand it, part of your work has also led to streamlining certain application forms or just doing away with them, right? So what sort of data informed those decisions you have?

Yihan: I think it is a hard fact that nobody likes filling out application forms, no matter how short they are. So, when I first joined, I believe we did an analysis of the number of fields in our application form. The online application form, in various forms, I think, had 57 to 80 fields if it was an application form. So, we did an analysis and obviously saw the highest level of drop-off. This is highly administrative. We do not want to fill out application forms. Users will go to a job board, and it is a much easier application process for them, right? 

And then, part of the data point actually came from the pre-onboarding surveys that we do for new hires. So, we had multiple touchpoints across the business, but the satisfaction survey for filling out that manual application form was just not good for them, right? So, I think those data points would essentially point out that we need to streamline the forms, maybe reducing the fields or the number of items that we collect from the candidates.

Lydia: So, there's no form whatsoever now if you wanna apply to DKSH?

Yihan: There will be some just to collect data at the initial stages. But, I would say it is still a work in progress for certain markets.

Stay Curious to Thrive in Tech-Driven Recruitment

Lydia: Okay. And finally, Yihan, what advice would you give someone who is starting out in this very vibrant and very technologically advanced recruitment space to date?

Yihan: I think, be curious. That would be my advice. Have an innate level of curiosity to ask questions. You need to be able to challenge the norm, have curiosity to learn new skills, and, importantly, be adaptive or receptive to change, right? So, AI is coming, and it will be even more forthcoming in the next couple of years than what we experienced in the last four years. So, having a curiosity mindset helps you to adapt to changes, and some of the AI skills can empower you as a recruiter. And I think it is also about taking calculated risks. Be a little bit adventurous here, right? So, if you are not making mistakes in your early career, you are not growing. So, I would encourage anyone who really wants to drive recruitment these days to take calculated risks and pair that with learning ability. You will do well.

Lydia: Well, thank you very much, Yihan. These have been great insights coming from you, especially in terms of rolling out brand new technologies, and also being able to identify what sort of bottlenecks can be solved with these kinds of technologies.

So, I'm sure the audience who's listening in might want to pick up a conversation with you. What's the best channel to connect with you?

Yihan: I am available on LinkedIn. So, feel free to connect, and I'll be more than happy to bounce ideas and share any of the insights, or if you're going through implementation with AI, I am more than happy to share tips and tricks.

Lydia: Thank you again, Yihan. We have been in conversation with Yihan Lin of DKSH. Thank you for joining us, and remember to subscribe to stay tuned for more weekly episodes from All In Recruitment.