72% of TA professionals believe AI will fundamentally change how companies hire
This article was created in partnership with LinkedIn.
As we inch closer towards 2026 and the new year, organizations are looking closely at how AI and emerging technologies can streamline certain internal processes and strategies - especially when it comes to recruitment.
When EML, Australia's leading claims manager for workers’ compensation and personal injury, needed to supercharge the growth team, they were faced with a problem. How can they reach the scale of expansion in the timeframe and ensure they were targeting and finding the best candidates for the roles required?
Speaking to HRD, Ally Sheehan, Talent Acquisition Partner at EML, said LinkedIn’s Hiring Assistant was key in expanding her talent pool network, freeing up her time from admin and, most importantly, finding the best candidates in the market.
“When I’m recruiting, I like to start small,” she told HRD. “That's because of the nature of the roles I recruit for. I could be recruiting a marketing manager, a database administrator and an accountant all at once, [meaning] I only have about 10 candidates for a review at each time. [With Hiring Assistant] I like the fact I can change this - I go back into the settings I can say I want this many candidates for it to reach out to. Having that flexibility is key.”
AI-powered hiring tools are #1 to automating recruiting workflows
As a lover of technology, Ally said that Hiring Assistant was effective at streamlining time-consuming admin.
“I live and breathe [tech] personally and professionally. When I heard Hiring Assistant launched, I thought ‘I can't wait to use it!’ And the first role that I used it for, I hired someone I found from the tool.
“For other Recruiters I’d say the biggest benefit is time back in their day to be able to actually focus on the most human part of our role - speaking to people,” added Ally. “That's our job as recruiters. The less admin we need to do, the better. You're going to also potentially find candidates you might not have thought of too.”
It’s a recruiting dilemma that many fellow professionals share, having to spend a disproportionate amount of time on admin instead of having meaningful face-to-face conversations with candidates. LinkedIn launched Hiring Assistant, LinkedIn’s first AI agent, to reduce the administrative burden on recruiters and free up their time to focus on what really matters.
According to LinkedIn’s research, recruiters are spending three to five hours a day reviewing applications, with 64% of TAs reporting that less than half of those applications meet all of the criteria listed. What’s more, access to AI-powered hiring tools is the #1 factor HR professionals (54%) say would make the hiring process easier, with nearly three-quarters (78%) saying AI makes it easier to find qualified candidates.
As Ally told HRD, when she’s sourcing for frontline or more niche roles Hiring Assistant is delivering candidate suggestions quickly. She’s been leveraging the tool to find potential new connections - even if she’s not hiring in their space directly.
“I’ve [been using Hiring Assistant] to find talent that I can connect to - because if they're good my team will interview them even if I don't have a role.”
When you invest the time to train your AI, you reap the benefits
The seamlessness of Hiring Assistant means that user experience is high, meaning that Recruiters only have to focus on one thing – perfecting their job description before uploading it to the platform. From there, Hiring Assistant does the heavy work for them.
“I’ve invested a lot of time to make sure my managers have really good job descriptions. If you have an average job description, you're going to get average candidates. Additionally, I’ve also ensured that I’m providing feedback to Hiring Assistant, so it can build upon that. It's great that I don’t even need to think about it, it just does it for me.”
And this new tool really is reflective of market sentiment at large. According to LinkedIn’s report, 72% of TA professionals believe AI will fundamentally change how companies hire. Furthermore, the data found that, globally, TA professionals experimenting with or integrating generative AI expect a wide range of benefits: the number one being improved hiring efficiency, more effective job postings, expanded talent pools (39%), enhanced candidate experience, and higher-quality hires.
‘The less admin we need to do, the more we can focus on strategic and human parts of being a recruiter’
For Ally, and for many of the colleagues in the hiring sector, having an all-encompassing platform that not only offers to help solve one bugbear in recruitment but actually supercharges the whole process is a gamechanger. And, at the end of the day, this AI agent is automating the non-human tasks, meaning recruiters can get back to what they do best.
Find out more about Hiring Assistant here.
