3 out of 4 Indian recruiters investing up to 70 pc hiring budgets in AI

New Delhi: Three out of four (75 per cent) recruiters in India are investing up to 70 per cent of their hiring budgets in recruitment tech and AI tools, a new report showed on Thursday.

Top three recruitment priorities are finding high-quality candidates with transferable skills (57 per cent), adopting smarter hiring tech (52 per cent), and proving the return on investment (ROI) of hiring investments to C-suite leaders (46 per cent), according to new research from LinkedIn.

Nearly three years into adopting AI at work, Indian recruiters are moving from ‘quick hiring’ to ‘quality hiring’.

However, challenges persist, from ensuring the right mix of soft and technical skills (64 per cent) to hiring fast (58 per cent) and finding candidates who are the right culture fit (54 per cent).

To meet these shifting demands, 69 per cent of Indian recruiters are now using data analytics to make informed hiring decisions and 63 per cent are using AI tools to improve hiring speed and accuracy, said the report.

“With the pressure to hire quickly, many recruiters cast the net wide but not deep, choosing volume over precision. But hiring today demands more. Recruiters need tools that help them find skilled talent who can drive real business outcomes,” said Ruchee Anand, Head of LinkedIn Talent Solutions in India.

The opportunity lies in using AI and data to shift from quick-fill roles to high-impact hires.

“Our latest research shows that over half (53 per cent) of recruiters in India already see stronger returns from platforms like LinkedIn, as they shift focus to skills like problem-solving, creativity, and leadership,” Anand added.

The quality of hire has become the most important measure of success, cited by 72 per cent of recruiters, followed by time to hire (60 per cent) and revenue per employee (59 per cent).

Recruiters say delays in the process result in losing top candidates to faster competitors (58 per cent), higher workload pressure on teams (64 per cent), and reduced productivity and morale (63 per cent).

The most common causes of delay are structural: lengthy approval processes (58 per cent) and indecision among hiring managers (56 per cent), the report found.

As AI adoption grows, 90 per cent percent of recruiters in India expect to step up as ‘strategic career advisors’ in their roles, and 92 per cent plan to use personalised content and data insights to engage candidates more effectively, it noted.

IANS