It’s not that the answers talent acquisition needed didn’t exist before; it’s that the technology to find the data and transform it into useful answers was still in the future. Thankfully, the future is now. Everyone talks about the power of programmatic and big data, but only some people in talent acquisition do something about it. Technology can help you use it to make better decisions. In some cases, it can make decisions and take action on its own.

Think of technology as the assistant you’ve always needed. Here are five ways big data and the technology used to understand it will change talent acquisition in 2018.

#1: AI and Machine Learning

2017 has been the year of machine learning. But it’s just getting started.

Just as space exploration as imagined in the 1950s seems fairly off base now, artificial intelligence/machine learning as it was imagined a few years ago isn’t entirely accurate. Robots aren’t coming to take jobs. They aren’t taking over departments, either. Technology is just helping talent acquisition work better.

Machine Learning is probably a better way to describe AI. As you use AI software, machine learning helps it learn from the experience so it can put that data to use in the future. Over time, the program’s abilities improve.

Here are just a few things AI can do right now:

• Screen and categorize job candidates
• Pose questions to potential candidates
• Track the activity of job seekers
• Reveal patterns in-house that help you take action before an employee quits

#2: Process Automation

How wonderful would it be to hand over some of the most mundane HR talent management tasks to someone, or something, that didn’t mind and did a great job? Technology enables process automation, which frees up your time for more important things.

Process automation works in concert with machine learning. Instead of penciling in time to update employee files, send emails and take action on social media, it does it for you.

These are some everyday tasks KissFlow says you should probably automate soon:

• Continually update employee files
• Send emails to job candidates
• Generate questionnaires for candidate screenings, either on your website or via text messaging
• Employee appraisals
• Time tracking
• Hiring requests between department managers and HR
• Onboarding
• Offboarding, including terminating accesses and privileges
• Vacation and leave requests

You can also schedule social media posts and blogs and set automated replies when a candidate makes an inquiry.

#3: Predictive Analytics

There are guesses, and then there are predictions. While instincts are necessary, nothing compares to predicting how a decision will play out using big data.

Predictive analytics makes data actionable. That helps you make smarter decisions about anything from sourcing to hiring to when or whether an employee might leave for another job. It also helps you make better use of your budget.

Technology lets you extract meaningful data that gives insights into the job at hand, no matter what the job happens to be. If you’re planning budget spend for job ads, predictive data uses market data as well as data from your own experiences, combines it and shows a more accurate picture of how that ad will perform. It helps you get the most out of your recruiting budget through better decisions and fewer mistakes.

#4: Data-Backed Recruitment

Where predictive analytics help you make better job ad placement decisions (and sometimes makes those decisions for you), which helps more qualified candidates find you, data-backed recruitment helps you find them.

Data-backed or data-driven recruitment gives you a better picture of how a candidate might suit the job. Using more than just line items on a resume, data helps you dig deeper and find the more subtle nuances that make a great fit.

Data can also help you track the accuracy of your decisions. Using information about offer and acceptance rates and early job performance data for the newly-hired, you’ll have more data to make even smarter choices next time.

#5: Targeted Job Ads

Targeted ads perform better and use your budget more efficiently. Technology makes targeted ads work better.

Job matching isn’t just a means to find the best candidate for the job. It helps maximize your budget spend on targeted ads. That means fewer ads hit the wrong channels and return unqualified candidates or none at all.

Targeting is efficient. It improves your ROI, gets better results and puts more and more data in your hands for an ongoing cycle of better targeting every time.

Technology by definition makes your life easier. In practice, it tackles the tough problems that you deal with every day. It learns from the past and helps predict the future. And the more you use it, the better it works.

Big data has already helped shape the talent industry in big and small ways. Going forward, technology will save time and money with better results and learn from every decision that’s made.