Are You Sending the Right Signals to Recruit AI Talent?

Companies are falling behind in the race to acquire AI talent—often, not by choice or ignorance, but because they aren’t sending the right signals to the talent marketplace.

Think about it: If you’re a talented data scientist or analytically driven manager, you’ll look for an environment that values those skills and promotes their growth.

If you’re not sending those signals, top AI talent won’t be interested to join your team.

“Since there's no common language for using analytics, and different problems require different skills, attracting candidates needs a different approach,” says consultancy PwC in research on data science and AI talent.

Define Your Specific AI Use Cases

Before you start trying to attract top AI talent, you’ll want to understand what type of team you want to build and how to build it. Rather than trying to build a team with a random set of AI skills, start by identifying a specific marketing use case you want to solve using AI. Reverse engineer from there to determine what type of talent you want to attract.

Related: How to identify the type of AI talent you need

Once you know specifically the type of talent you need, you’ll want to send a very targeted message.

Recruiting is just like marketing. It’s all about hitting the right person with the right message at the right time.

The job description is your message.

Although writing a job description to attract AI talent might traditionally be left to a recruiter,  there’s no reason you can’t help. Your marketing skills will be especially helpful, and no one knows the type of candidate you’re looking for better than you do.

CIO says that “job descriptions are like a dating site profile,” and offers a few tips for attracting the right candidates:

• Be clear about what skills are must haves and which are simply desired. It’s tough to find the perfect match with all your desired qualifications—but an 80% match could work out great.
• Use specific job titles and qualifications. You’ve already defined your specific use cases for AI above, so this is a great way to show candidates exactly what you want to accomplish.
• Emphasize your culture and branding. Communicate the value of your organization to candidate, just like you would communicate value to your leads. You already have one selling point: you’re an early adopter of AI technology in marketing. That type of experience will be of incredible value for candidates in the future.

Working With Recruiters to Find AI Talent

Now that you have the right message, it’s time to get it in front of your target audience. This is the recruiter’s area of expertise. You’ve given them everything they need, so they should have a great understanding of what exactly you’re looking for.

Assuming you stay involved in the interviewing process and do what you can to promote the position from a marketing standpoint, you’ll be well on your way to recruiting outstanding AI talent to your team.