Round Table Recruitment & in Lille: AI, Soft Skills, and the Future of Recruitment

An evening of discussion between HR professionals, recruiters, and executives around a single question: how to recruit better in a world where artificial intelligence is transforming practices?

Throughout the discussions, one point became clear: AI does not replace the recruiter. It allows them to dedicate more time to what truly creates value: understanding candidates, interacting with managers, and making better decisions.

« Candidate experience is super important. »

Candidate Experience Remains at the Heart of Recruitment

Even with the advent of AI, the speakers unanimously reiterated that recruitment remains, above all, a human endeavor.

Tools allow for faster processing, but they do not replace listening or the quality of exchanges.

« I want to handle my applications as well as possible to avoid overlooking people who could be very good candidates. »

« Anyone I meet, by phone or in person, deserves more than just an automated email. »

Automation should serve a better candidate experience, not the other way around.

Why the CV Is No Longer Enough

The CV remains a useful document, but it primarily shows a candidate's past experience.

The participants pointed out that it naturally has limitations: certain skills remain invisible, and two recruiters may interpret the same profile differently.

« Reading a CV doesn't mean the candidate is necessarily perfect. »

« We're human. There are always little things we haven't paid attention to. »

With hundreds of applications, the risk of overlooking a good candidate becomes very real.

« With hundreds of applications in a few days, screening is clearly the step where we lose the most time. »

It is precisely at this stage that analysis and matching tools can provide concrete assistance to recruiters.

Artificial Intelligence is Already Transforming Recruitment

AI is no longer a trend: it is now part of the daily lives of many HR teams.

It enables, among other things:

rapid analysis of a large volume of applications;
identification of the most relevant profiles;
assistance in objectifying certain decisions;
saving recruiters precious time.

As several speakers emphasized:

« AI will become even more central in the recruitment process. »

« We are talking more and more about recruiting without a CV. »

« In the future, we might very well receive a matching analysis directly rather than a CV. »

The goal is not to eliminate the recruiter, but to provide them with more information to make decisions.

Useful AI is AI That Adds Value

The speakers also insisted on an essential point: automatically generating content is not enough.

AI must provide understandable, actionable, and truly useful analyses for decision-making.

« If an AI produces a hollow summary, it's of no interest. »

« What matters is not just automating, but bringing real value to the recruiter. »

The quality of the generated information therefore becomes as important as the speed of its production.

Recruiting Also Means Supporting Managers

The success of a recruitment depends not only on HR.

Managers play an essential role in the integration and success of employees.

As was recalled during the round table:

« Teams are a manager's first clients. »

« Our role is to give them the best chances of success. »

« Performance comes from both substance and form. »

Recruitment thus becomes a true collaborative effort between HR, managers, and decision-support tools.

Structuring Recruitment for Increased Efficiency

The discussions also highlighted the importance of a clear process.

Even before the interview, a pre-qualification phase remains essential to present the best profiles to managers.

« The manager intervenes quickly, but pre-qualification remains essential before presenting candidates to them. »

« Structuring recruitment saves time and improves decision quality. »

AI precisely helps streamline these initial steps while leaving the final decision to recruiters.

Key Takeaways

This round table organized in Lille highlights several major evolutions:

AI is becoming a true recruiter's assistant;
the CV alone is no longer sufficient to evaluate a candidate;
soft skills are taking on an increasingly important role;
candidate experience remains a differentiating factor;
the recruiter retains a central role in decision-making.

Therefore, the future of recruitment lies not in an opposition between humans and artificial intelligence, but in their complementarity.

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