Problem / Objective:

IBM receives 7,000 job applications a day globally. The company has a huge amount of recruitment and candidate data. This becomes a challenge for the organisation to assist the applicant in finding the right chance.

Solution / Approach:

IBM India devised Watson Candidate Assistant (WCA), which is an AI-based solution. The solution addresses challenges faced by the HR departments in talent acquisition. The candidates use the IBM job portal and start conversing with the WCA or type in queries. NLP is used to converse with the candidate. Once a candidate uploads his/her resume, the WCA understands the resume and reads it. The company has used machine learning in its solution to understand the language used in a candidate’s resume and relate to the relevance of skills and competencies related to the job requirement. This is done to understand various industry terms, acronyms and words. WCA tells the candidate about the degree of match for a specific role and indicates if the skills match any other role which the candidate may not have applied.

Impact / Implementation:

The solution was first piloted internally until October 2018 and WCA originated with a proof of concept (POC). Over 15,000 candidates participated in the PoC to match their skills to job openings at the company. 90 per cent of the candidates who used WCA, found it engaging and more than 90 per cent found the matches to be valuable and relevant. The speed of the hiring process has been increased by over 30 per cent using WCA. Currently, WCA is being used by IBM India clients as part of its Human Capital Management offering.

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