What do candidates think of AI in the recruiting process? They love it. (We ask them.) We see a positive satisfaction rate of over 96%. The automation that saves our managers hours per week also saves candidates time.
Candidates can apply on their smartphone in more than 100 languages in less than three minutes, then receive a response and schedule an interview in minutes. They can then get their questions answered in real time and even reschedule their interview time if life arises.
The “CFO-proof” proposal template
I’ve written hundreds of business cases for organizations in all types of industries and seen what it takes to move a CFO (or other executive decision maker) from “red pen” to “green light.”
Material or operational savings
We will clearly distinguish:
Difficult economies: Direct impacts on budget lines (e.g. removal of redundant expenses on job sites, reduction of overtime).
Operational efficiency: Quantifiable productivity gains for managers (for example, giving each store manager more than five hours per week).
Strategic alignment: Ensuring proposals align with the company’s biggest priorities, whether it’s a new product launch, a sustainability effort, or, most commonly in retail, a high-volume holiday recruiting campaign.
Interactive plan creation exercises
We will use a specific workbook design to test participants’ current state and map their future automation strategy.
Budget stress tests: We will conduct exercises to determine how leaders can achieve ambitious recruiting goals, even as budgets continue to shrink.
Automation levels: I’ll show how to segment an organization’s workforce to create different recruiting workflows with different levels of automation by position type. This will clarify why frontline and customer-facing roles might be ripe for 95% automation, while enterprise roles might more realistically aim for 60%.
The power of “conversational”
Finally, I will demonstrate why a conversational approach is so important for results.
Traditional recruiting funnels lose candidates due to clunky logins and non-mobile forms. Using conversational AI (24/7 text entry and chat technology), we’ve seen conversion rates triple for customers. This is not a gentle measure; this involves maximizing the candidate pool and reducing the cost per candidate by cutting job advertising spend by more than half.
Come see “Building the Business Case for AI in Talent Acquisition” at NRF 2026 on Monday, January 12, from 12 p.m. – 1 p.m., and stop by the Workday booth (booth 3) for a Paradox demo.