Customer Stories 
Summary
Epicor has developed an approach to artificial intelligence (AI) deployment in talent acquisition (TA) that allows them to go beyond the hype, drive real efficiency gains and streamline multiple processes. This approach to AI in recruiting is grounded in four principles:
- Slow is smooth and smooth is fast: A concept borrowed from the motorsport space, it underscores the importance of identifying small wins with AI, demonstrating ROI to the business, driving internal buy-in and swiftly moving on to the next optimization opportunity.
- Stakeholder-driven: If AI doesn’t support processes that streamline your stakeholders’ activities and improve their experiences, then there is no point in using it.
- Transparent and inclusive: To support inclusive hiring, recruiters need visibility into the logic behind the AI algorithm. They also need flexibility to make adjustments and ensure the criteria considered are based on objective qualifications.
- Human-controlled: AI is a support tool and humans, in this case recruiters, are the ones who should make a final decision. Under no circumstances should AI make the decisions for them.
Avature AI is the solid foundation where Epicor brings this forward-looking yet controlled approach to life. Currently, the organization leverages our AI matching primarily during the sourcing process, bringing up qualified leads to link to their job requisitions. Although they have already achieved impressive results, Epicor’s AI journey is far from ending.
When I’m doing my job well, I’m never really done; I’m just constantly getting better.”
Maxwell Lombardi
Associate Manager of Global HR Operations at Epicor
About Epicor
Operating in 150 countries, Epicor develops enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for small and medium-sized businesses, mainly in the manufacturing, retail, distribution and automotive verticals. With 50 years of experience in the industry, Epicor has constantly pushed the boundaries of innovation to support its customers in profound transformations, such as transitioning from on-premise infrastructures to the cloud.
The company’s more than 4,500 employees are the driving force behind its sustained success. The visionary mindset that has placed Epicor as a market leader permeates through the company’s cutting-edge, AI-powered strategy to hire hard-to-find, highly skilled technical talent more efficiently and effectively.
Setting the Stage for AI-Powered Sourcing
The Benefits of the Calibration Phase
During calibration, hiring managers are requested to complete Avature-powered forms that contain open-ended questions so they can think more critically about the requirements the next hire should meet. By understanding more deeply what the hiring manager is looking for, recruiters are better equipped to optimize the requisition and hone their talent searches.
Like with every sea change that comes along, change management is a crucial part of incorporating AI in recruiting. Instead of jumping straight into implementing AI, Epicor understands the importance of taking a gradual approach that increases confidence and trust.
With this in mind, additional steps (such as the calibration phase) strengthen the relationship between recruiting and the business, demonstrate success and continue paving the way for AI acceptance.
Optimized Requisitions
Requisition optimization is a pivotal step before leveraging AI in sourcing: the more detailed the requisition is, the more precise the AI-powered matching between requisition and candidates will be.
Once a job is created, Epicor leverages Avature’s intelligent parser and robust ontology to complete the Skills field of job records automatically. This feature is a game-changer for recruiters because they never have to start their searches from a blank slate, and it is especially helpful for those new to the company or industry.
Keeping things under recruiters’ control, they can edit these skills to make sure they align with the calibration results. The requisition optimization then continues with Epicor’s recruiters setting a series of filters to ensure that the AI only suggests candidates who meet all the requirements.
Configuring the Matching Criteria
Fostering inclusion sits at the heart of Epicor’s AI philosophy for recruiting. To this end, they harness Avature’s flexibility to set the weight that the AI will consider for job titles and skills, two objective criteria that help mitigate bias.
As well as diversifying its pipelines, the focus on skills gives Epicor an advantage when securing top talent. By using AI to identify skills, Epicor can recognize qualified candidates that they could otherwise miss if they focused on more traditional criteria, such as university degrees.
Our AI only considers skills and job titles. We don’t consider demographic information; I have no idea if a candidate is a man or a woman. I just know skills and job titles, and that’s all I’m comparing.”
Maxwell Lombardi
Associate Manager of Global HR Operations at Epicor
Having the power to tweak how the matching works yields another benefit for Epicor. Pairing control with data, the company supports an iterative approach whereby they experiment with different weighting for skills and job titles to measure performance and improve effectiveness over time.
Putting AI to Work
After adjusting the weight for each criterion the AI will consider, Epicor’s recruiters are ready to receive intelligent candidate recommendations and assess if they should be linked to the requisition.
Avature AI will bring up candidates already in the database who have agreed to let Epicor have their information and contact them. From current employees to referrals to silver medalists to interns and leads from events and career fairs, the organization has multiple sources of talent to tap into for their searches, and they strive to make the most of all of them.
Epicor’s approach to AI is defined by intentionality, which is why they use additional filters to establish an order of sources that the AI tool will follow when scanning the database. Internal talent is prioritized first in an effort to provide a better service to their employees. Then, they continue to honor their people by considering referrals, followed by silver medalists, interns and external leads.
They can even go beyond the source and define extra elements to be considered in the matching to help refine the suggestions even further. This is usually the case for the answers candidates provide through forms or questionnaires when they submit their applications or resumes. Because Avature AI is configurable by nature, it can take those answers into account when matching a candidate to a requisition.
AI That Heightens the Human in Recruiting
At Epicor, AI does not make decisions. Recruiters do. While the discovery of qualified candidates is significantly streamlined thanks to AI, Epicor believes that recruiters are the specialists trained to be the face of the organization and lead any interactions with the candidates. Therefore, they are in charge of reviewing the suggested candidates, deciding if they’re a good fit, scheduling interviews and providing feedback.
This is where we start to use less of the AI in action, but we’re continuing to leverage everything the AI has done up to this point… Don’t let AI make the decision. Let it make your decision-making process easier. The AI puts the most likely candidates at the top of the stack, so your recruiters spend their time in the most effective places and are more likely to find the best person sooner.”
Maxwell Lombardi
Associate Manager of Global HR Operations at Epicor
Ultimately, using AI in recruiting is about enhancing efficiency, that is, streamlining low-value-adding activities so recruiters can focus on what they do best (and enjoy most): partnering with the business, connecting with candidates, promoting the company’s employer brand and securing the talent the business needs to grow.
Demonstrating the ROI of AI in Recruiting
Interestingly, bringing this full-fledged AI-powered approach to sourcing goes beyond resting solely on AI. Epicor has understood the importance of creating a holistic framework for AI, with other Avature capabilities, such as tags, workflow steps and lists, also coming into play to keep track of their efforts, report on them and demonstrate ROI.
Whenever a person sourced through AI gets linked to a requisition, this is carried out through a dedicated workflow step. This gives Epicor the ability to learn about the candidates’ journey and determine:
- Did the candidates make it to interviews?
- How many candidates sourced through AI were runners-up?
- Did they end up being hired?
- What was the recruiters’ and hiring managers’ feedback?
Now, on to the results! Epicor tracked its AI-driven hiring efforts for the last fiscal year and found exciting results. Out of 68 candidates linked to jobs through AI recommendations, 48 were interviewed by hiring teams, resulting in 6 hires.
I leverage this list and custom reporting to say that out of every 11 candidates that Epicor has linked from AI recommendations, we’ve hired one. These are really cool numbers that we’re able to track just by leveraging the tools that already exist.”
Maxwell Lombardi
Associate Manager of Global HR Operations at Epicor
Looking Ahead
As Epicor continues to build momentum with AI, the company already has ambitious plans to branch out to other areas of recruiting and talent management. The goal? To progressively unlock an end-to-end, AI-powered talent strategy with Avature at the heart.
The company is looking forward to leveraging Avature’s person-to-person matching capabilities to gain an advantage in regions where the recruiting processes are lengthy and the risk of losing qualified candidates at the last hurdle increases. Similarly, they are excited about leveraging AI to craft bespoke learning and development paths for employees.
The four cornerstones of Epicor’s philosophy to deploy AI in recruiting cut across their present initiatives and will undoubtedly define those they will set in place in the future.
From demonstrating ROI through small wins to improving stakeholders’ experience to ensuring equitable processes and putting the decision-making power in recruiters’ hands, Epicor’s AI story is full of valuable takeaways for companies looking to cut through the noise and leverage this technology to drive tangible value across the talent lifecycle.
AI can be very daunting. So, when you start with those small wins, those little manageable bites, that helps you build momentum, it gives you ROI that you can show and fight your case and tell your story, and it builds confidence internally, as well. When you see results that are factual, you can then make objective statements and comments, and that is very powerful.”
Maxwell Lombardi
Associate Manager of Global HR Operations at Epicor
