The use of artificial intelligence (AI) processes have been largely accelerated by the disruptive development of generative AI that is reinventing typically resource-intensive processes. These new tools now allow users to produce original, creative outputs with minimal human inputs. In the background, there have been a lot of conversations circulating and policy initiatives birthed, from AI regulation to the influence of AI on national economies and its application across various, often non-tech industries. Africa and Nigeria in particular have not been lagging behind in these discussions.
In Africa, public interest in AI has recently been on the rise. In Nigeria alone, from February 2023 to May 2023, there has been a 50% increase in AI Google searches. And from June 2022 to May 2023, the searches about the meaning of AI have increased by 140%.
However, given the disruptive nature of AI and the attendant unfamiliarity with likely impact and opportunities, public interest has been inspired not only by curiosity, but concerns as well. One of the key concerns is how AI will impact the labour market in the long run. According to the World Economic Forum, 43% of work tasks currently completed by humans will be carried out by AI by 2027 — a 9% increase since 2022. This trend of work automation has been affecting both job seekers and employers. While job seekers are increasingly worried about the redundancy of their skills due to expansive AI adoption, employers are making long-term plans on how to support workers who may be potentially laid off.
Still, some seekers and organisations choose to see the glass as half full instead of half empty and explore how they can benefit from the AI revolution. For example, forward-thinking job hunters understand that advanced job sites often prioritise CVs and rank applications based on AI algorithms, thus becoming more competitive amidst their peers by upgrading their CVs. As for employers, some opt to incorporate AI solutions in their human resource management to make recruitment and onboarding more efficient. In this vein, strategically thinking employers consider the AI revolution not as a potential reason to lay off staff, including recruiters and HR managers, but as a helpful addition to their team that will remove a pile of routine tasks from to-do lists. By seeing AI as a source of new possibilities instead of alarmist threats, employers and job seekers up their game to remain top of mind for one another in the labour market.
To help both employers and job seekers unlock the positive potential of AI in job search and recruitment, Jobberman Nigeria has improved its job listing recruitment platform, the largest of such in sub-Saharan Africa, with up-to-date AI solutions. In the country where, according to this report by the company, 34% of youths have been unemployed for a minimum of 1 year and employers are scrambling for talents due to the notorious ‘japa’ wave, one of the prior objectives of AI adoption is to mitigate the overwhelming extent of the labour market imbalance. It means before AI can be seriously discussed as the potential cause of lay-offs in Nigeria, employers need to at least have critical vacant roles filled and workplace processes optimised enough to become mundane.
In the pursuit of reducing unemployment and underemployment, as well as its duration by connecting employers with maximally relevant candidates, Jobberman Nigeria has introduced two AI-backed features — Relevance Ranking and Recommended Candidate. The new features are built upon a unique scoring system that brings the overall function of the Jobberman Nigeria`s Applicant Tracking System in employers` accounts to a higher level. Here is a closer look at how both features allow employers to free their HR staff from repetitive, resource-draining tasks:
- Relevance Ranking. Jobberman`s platform now automatically ranks applicants per vacancy in a list from most qualified at the top to least qualified. For this, the algorithms analyse information from the applicants` CVs and align it with requirements in the job opening posted by an employer. The employer then sees already rank candidates on a dashboard in the Applicant Tracking System in their employer account which makes it much easier to shortlist candidates from there. By selecting from an already ranked list, an employer saves time for a more thorough CV analysis.
- Recommended Candidate. For every job opening posted by an employer, Jobberman`s algorithms select the top ten (10) most relevant candidates. These automatically selected candidates are then presented to an employer through the dashboard in the Applicant Tracking System via their account on the platform. Employers can, with a single click invite the recommended qualified candidates to apply. With this feature, employers will benefit from Jobberman`s extensive database of both active and inactive qualified candidates.
For job seekers to gain from both features, it is very important to fully update their CVs uploaded on the Jobberman`s platform. There are 5 (five) sections that are a must for an update — About you (professional summary), work experience, experience level, location, and education.
The more comprehensively each of them is filled, the better chances the candidate has to be matched with a suitable employer by Jobberman`s AI algorithms. The mechanics behind this is that in the case of an exhaustively filled CV, the system will have enough information to process the CV and figure out what candidates and employers make the best match.
To register with Jobberman Nigeria`s platform and automate recruitment to preserve resources for CV analysis and interviews, employers can sign up here: https://www.jobberman.com/account/employer/sign-up
Job seekers can create an account to place their CVs and leverage on the new AI-powered opportunities to secure gainful employment in a short time frame here:
https://www.jobberman.com/account/customer/sign-up
About the author
Founded in 2009, Jobberman is an AI-powered digital and hybrid recruitment platform that provides training and placement for job seekers, as well as the best selection of candidates for companies hiring. It is the single largest job placement website in sub-Saharan Africa, aiming to strengthen economic sustainability with youth-specific research, training, and advocacy programs. Jobberman Nigeria operates under The African Talent Company, a group of pan-African businesses working together to solve the talent gap in Africa with unique, homegrown solutions.
