Here's how AI is changing how top companies hire
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming hiring across ANZ organisations, and it’s reshaping the role of recruiters too. According to LinkedIn’s Future of Recruiting 2025 report, 72% of talent acquisition (TA) professionals believe AI will fundamentally change how companies hire. With AI handling time-consuming tasks like screening resumes and drafting job descriptions, recruiters are finding more time to focus on strategic work - building relationships, advising hiring managers, and improving the candidate experience.
LinkedIn’s report 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.
Kat Mitchell, Talent Acquisition Director, ANZ & ASEAN , told HRD that this uptake in AI is reflective of the skills revolution going on in organisations, adding that for Microsoft there are three key priorities for the skills they're focusing on including AI and embedding it into their talent acquisition workflows.
“We've used things like AI assisted messages in LinkedIn Recruiter to really unleash the power of more personalized communication. And actually, as a result, we've seen our candidate response rate go up by 13%.”
“One of the biggest benefits around AI is, without a doubt, being able to take on that [administrative] work we've all laboured over for many years,” said Mitchell. She explained that her team also created an AI agent to be able to build success profiles for our critical leadership roles.
“That task would have normally taken weeks, if not months to be able to do.,” said Mitchell. “We created an agent in 45 minutes – we created the template and the success profiles… then we simply just sent them and worked with the executive team to validate them right away [through] self-referencing.”
Implementing AI Responsibly, at Scale
At its core, AI is a tool to augment human judgment, not replace it. It’s with this in mind that leaders should be embracing the new tech - and encouraging their people to do the same. And this, according to Mitchell, really begins with rolling out AI in an ethical, and understandable, way.
“We've set some really clear principles at the outset to guide that [AI] journey,” added Micthell. “Everything we're doing with AI is anchored in Microsoft's Responsible AI Principles - these are fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency and accountability. [Because], ultimately, we're all accountable for how we use AI and how our technology impacts the world.”
As Mitchell told HRD, at the end of the day, AI adoption is about upskilling and getting people comfortable.
“Finding those early adopters who can help take others on the journey with you, encourage bridging that adoption and engagement at a team level and creating space for people to just learn, practice, try, fail in a safe environment.”
“By communicating clearly, building community, upskilling continuously, and measuring progress, we can drive meaningful change that truly empowers our workforce.”
AI Adoption Starts at the Top
For executives hoping to take full advantage of AI and AI-driven tools in 2025 and beyond, it’s important to lead by example - helping their people understand, not fear, this new age of tech. Speaking at LinkedIn and Microsoft’s Workforce Transformation Series, Sarah Carney, National CTO at Microsoft ANZ, reinforced Micthell’s assertions around AI, adding that leaders must lead from the front.
“The single biggest unblocker for AI is leader-led transformation. Leaders who are standing out the front talking about how they’re using AI,” she said. “Everyone is waiting for leadership and they want to know where to start, who is going to lead this for us and how do we step into this? This is a technology where you need to experiment. You need trial and error to be part of your culture.”
To help with AI upskilling LinkedIn has unlocked LinkedIn Learning Certificates for free: LinkedIn Recruiter and AI-Driven Talent Acquisition Professional Certificate by LinkedIn Learning and Generative AI for Recruiting Professional Certificate by LinkedIn Learning and AI Skills Pathway.
For further insights from LinkedIn on hiring in 2025, check out the full Future of Recruiting 2025 report.
