Developers of new technologies, scaremongers, pessimists and people with something to sell are always predicting the demise of the recruitment industry and the end for recruitment consultants. We're all going to be replaced by robots. Some would say that the recruitment industry has been at death's door for at least twenty years. Reality indicates that people are rarely in a job for life, and job moves mean active candidates in the job market. Particularly in management consulting, good candidates are constantly seeking new challenges.

As we enter 2019, it's more clear than ever that data isn't going to simply play a supporting role – not for any industry, and certainly not for recruitment, where it may well take center stage. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, scientific approaches to assessment, talent intelligence, and other areas are dependent on it, so to keep up, recruitment firms must have a wealth of actionable information to draw on. To do so effectively, they must appoint data-driven business leaders. Just as many firms have a C-Suite, modern recruitment firms should have a D-Suite – where analyzing information and using insight to improve key business processes are treated as urgently as sourcing candidates; pleasing clients while fulfilling other critical business functions. If you're running a recruitment firm, here are three reasons to appoint some data-driven leaders.

Whilst this use of AI is well known within customer service portals, it is perhaps a newer angle for the recruitment process. A chat bot can sit on a recruitment firm's website and act as a "concierge" service, assisting candidates with questions - about a particular role, or the recruitment process, prior to even applying for the job. Not only does this save time for the candidate, because they don't have to wait for a call back (that might never come), it can improve the application rates to the job. This is because the chat bot can prompt candidates who have started but not completed an application to do so (research shows that the rate of incomplete applications can be surprisingly high). The extra clever bit with the more advanced chat bots is that with the use of a natural language programming (NLP) engine, the chat bot can learn answers to new questions so it continuously improves on how many questions can be answered before directing the candidate to a recruiter.