AI and automation are transforming the way we work, from the tools we use to the processes we follow. The staffing industry, once slow to adopt new technology, is now experiencing rapid change. But what does this mean for recruiters? How will AI and automation reshape their roles in the near future? And how is Avionté using these technologies to simplify recruiters‘ daily tasks and pave the way for a more efficient recruitment process?
In this episode of Avionté: Digital Edge, our Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer, Christopher Ryan, sits down with Joe Hiber, Avionté’s former Director of Product and current Director of Product Management for SimpleVMS, to explore these questions.
This is a partial transcript of the full conversation. Listen to the podcast episode for the complete discussion.
Chris Ryan: So, tell us a little bit more about yourself, Joe. Before you joined Avionté, you had hands-on experience in the staffing industry as a recruiter for a local staffing firm. Can you tell us more about that early experience?
Joe Hiber: Yeah, like many staffing and recruiters, I fell into the industry firsthand. My dad had worked previously as a branch manager for a staffing agency, and I spent many summers working on an assignment role, getting in those extra income hours, if you will. But my college experience was a little different. I, as a freshman in college, took on a recruiting role where I filled in for a maternity leave.
And what once was just supposed to be a two-week assignment turned into a full-time role. And later I advanced into a career in staffing and recruiting, and I love the recruiting industry
Chris Ryan: What was it about that early experience that got you hooked? What was your day-to-day experience like as a recruiter?
Joe Hiber: My initial experience was as a light industrial and clerical recruiter. I was interested in learning the story of people I was able to take those stories and ultimately apply them to filling roles.
So, it was fascinating for me to see people who needed a position come into the office, learn their story, and then place them on an assignment that could turn fruitful for them.
Chris Ryan: So, there was a lot of gratification in your day-to-day work. Looking back, what were some of the tasks that were most time-consuming or that pulled you away from higher-priority activities? Were there aspects of the job where you wished you had more technology or automation to support you?
Joe Hiber: I think one of the interesting avenues that I progressed into was IT Staffing and more direct type placement. One of the challenges that we faced was just retelling a person’s story. So, looking at somebody’s resume and saying, “How do I explain who this person is to a hiring manager?”
And so, one of the places that I think technology, especially AI, can assist with is helping them construct someone’s story – being able to articulate where they’ve been, what they’re interested in doing, and why they might be a fit for a particular role.
Chris Ryan: Interesting. Normally, I don’t think of a recruiter as a storyteller, but in a sense, that’s a skill that is going to be very important if you’re going to connect people to an employer and make it work.
So, now you’re Director of Product at Avionté, and I have to ask what inspired you to transition from being a recruiter on a day-to-day basis to going into technology. And I’m also curious how your early experiences shaped the way you approach developing software at Avionté.
Joe Hiber: I had a strong interest in technology. As I mentioned, I was filling technology consultants as a full-time role, and what I was ultimately doing was learning what jobs these people were doing. I’m a natural builder at heart. And so, a role in product, building for my former career set was something I was really interested in.
I got to learn the actual challenges that recruiters were facing, especially with technology, and I learned that I could translate my experience into the actual product and say, “How can I help my colleagues perform their job much faster, much quicker?”
And so, leveraging that experience, I worked my way up through the roles here at Avionté. I initially started as a trainer, learning about all the different facets of staffing, then moved into a product role where we’re building products for the very folks that I was once training and once was a part of myself.
Chris Ryan: Interesting, because to be a good recruiter, you have to be good at building relationships. And working in product sometimes forces you to be very focused. How do you reconcile that?
Joe Hiber: Just like being a recruiter, we are very much in product also relationship builders with our customers. It’s how we get informed on how to build our next feature set. Their insight is important to us because, ultimately, we’re building for them.
So, having a relationship with our customers and learning about features, what works well, what doesn’t work well, and then building and solutioning around that is one of the best parts of my job.
Chris Ryan: Interesting. Everyone’s talking now about automation and artificial intelligence, and it’s transforming a lot of different industries. How do you see artificial intelligence transforming or reshaping the role of recruiters?
Joe Hiber: I think that AI will become one of the strongest tools inside of a recruiter’s tool belt.
What I see in the immediate future is AI isn’t going to replace the need for recruiters, it’s only going to make their job a bit easier and more efficient. I think it will become one of the biggest efficiency drivers in a recruiter’s life – everything from creating content, generating job descriptions, helping write a resume, helping write a cover letter, and things like that – that recruiters spend an inordinate amount of time on will become much, much easier.
You’ll also be able to leverage AI to identify who should you be spending your time on and who should you be working with to generate future sales leads or future opportunities. I also see AI as a great research tool to identify who that perfect fit candidate is when trying to make a match between employer and candidate.
So, with the tools that we’re seeing with AI, you’re still going to have the recruiters holding the relationship. However, how they can staff and the amount of people they can help will go up.
But keep in mind that’s a double-edged sword. Talent also can use these tools to apply to jobs at a 10 X faster rate than they were before. So, it’s going to be even more important that these tools are used to screen candidates, to identify those that are the perfect fit, because right now, recruiters have the risk of being inundated because it is so much easier for talent to apply.
Chris Ryan: What are some of the impacts that recruiters and staffing agencies are likely to see in the very near future, like within the next three months, the next six months, or even the next year?
Joe Hiber: Short term, I think that you’re going to see an emergence of this operational AI where ultimately AI technologies are going to direct recruiters on where to spend their time, where to provide those instant efficiencies.
I think in the near term you’re going to see that recruiters are going to be able to deliver talent much faster and match talent to jobs faster. As AI expands six months to a year out, we’re seeing an emergence of this AI as an agent trend where AI Is doing tasks on behalf of the recruiter. Things like interview chatbots or conversational AI. And then, once you’ve combined a bunch of AI tool sets together, you’ll start to see massive gains across the recruiters’ day.
Chris Ryan: So, let’s say a job requisition comes in now. How is AI going to help the recruiter get that job requisition up faster?
Joe Hiber: Job requisitions typically come in from a hiring manager. There’s somebody who understands their workflow very, very well, and sometimes utilizes keywords or industry trends that are specific to them in their specific domain.
I think that AI will allow somebody who’s building a job post that isn’t directly in that domain to be able to advertise to talent that are. So being able to articulate a job posting very clearly to specific talent is one of the big advantages that AI will have.
Chris Ryan: So, AI might do a better job of helping a recruiter market the job to a talent pool or a broad audience, or maybe figure out which audiences you should even send that job description to.
Joe Hiber: Exactly, and then you take it another step farther from the job advert perspective. You have this talent coming in. How do I interview them? What questions do I ask? What things should I be looking for with this talent? So, AI is another great tool where again, you can build interview scripts, and be able to easily analyze their responses to say, “Hey, is this talent the exact match for the position that I might not know a ton about?”
Chris Ryan: Will talent be willing to talk to a chatbot, either live or via text versus talking to a recruiter? What evidence do we have that people are willing to do that? And when should the recruiter be involved in the interview?
Joe Hiber: That’s a great question. I think it’s going to vary industry by industry. One of the things specific to talent, when they’re looking for a job is that they’re interested in what is the next step? One of the things that I think as the job market and job boards have really evolved, people are used to submitting an application and ultimately it goes into a black hole.
So, one of the pieces that I think is most important and interesting about AI is instant engagement with the talent. Suddenly, when talent is engaging with a bot, maybe it is doing a pre-screening for them, or maybe it is telling them what the job is about, it allows for them to have a next step. And when you keep the talent engaged with the next step, they’re much more likely to continue to engage with you on the post steps after the application process.
Chris Ryan: You said something interesting, which is using it for pre-screening. I would imagine that a very useful way of using a chatbot would be to quickly figure out whether or not somebody is qualified for a job before you engage them in a more detailed interview. Is that what you’re implying?
Joe Hiber: Exactly. And one of the things that I think is super important is that talent is going to be able to apply so much faster.
So being able to hone in on where to spend their time. That pre-screening bot just gives you a list of people who are already engaged and identified as a pre-fit for the opportunity. Of course, you’re still going to want to do your relationship steps of having them come in for an interview, discussing the position with them, and having that human touch.
But that first step of who do I spend my time with is drastically cut short when you have a list of people that are a potential match.
Chris Ryan: So, it’s interesting in these particular applications, nowhere are you talking about replacing the recruiter? You’re looking for automation that will make the recruiter’s job a little easier. But there are a lot of recruiters who worry that, at some point, this technology might replace them or might diminish the personal touch.
How do you address these concerns with an agency?
Joe Hiber: Staffing and recruiting is still a relationship business, and it’s a two-sided relationship business. You have a relationship between the agency and the employer, and you have a relationship between the talent and the staffing agency as well. Both needs must still be met. Agency staff must work with the customer to understand their needs and what type of talent they typically like. AI isn’t going to replace that.
And same thing for when talent works with recruiters. They want to make sure that the recruiter is somebody who’s looking out for their best interest and making sure that there are future placements for them. So, I don’t believe that AI is going to replace the need for a recruiter.
I think it just is a tool in the tool belt that allows for a recruiter to do their job more efficiently. It takes out the mundane tasks, such as reformatting a resume, building a job description, and things like that. It allows the recruiter to focus on the relationship between them and the talent, or them and the buyer.
Chris Ryan: So, we often talk about, the concept of having a best-in-class ATS to support your recruiting process. And I’m curious, in light of the development of AI and automation, in your opinion, what features or capabilities define a best-in-class ATS?
Joe Hiber: The ATS is the center hub of your entire business operations. So, when you think about an ATS and what constitutes something as best in class, first off, it has to be organized well. If you’re going to be leveraging new AI technology, your data has to be organized in a way that can ultimately use that tool to leverage it.
So, for AI to work its magic, data like skills, certifications, and other key details that define a candidate need to be organized and easy to understand. When the data is structured right, AI can use it to its full potential.
So, having a best-in-class ATS is important when you are looking at either a tool developed by that ATS or a partner that integrates with that ATS. It’s important that the data structures behind it are something that I can leverage.
Beyond that, again, you have things like easy-to-search or easy-to-create job descriptions – features that ultimately make that recruiter’s day just a little bit faster.
Chris Ryan: Buying technology is not necessarily always an easy decision. And I know a lot of staffing agencies struggle both with technology selection and adoption. If you were advising a friend or a relative in the staffing industry about how to evaluate technology partners, what are some of the key things that a staffing agency should be looking for in particular?
Joe Hiber: I think it’s important for stakeholders to understand what success looks like, and what business problems are they looking to solve. When I think of Avionté, we are the best in class, especially when it comes to our front and back office.
So having a full front- and back-office suite in the capable hands of recruiters, I can easily solve all the needs of my organization in one tool set. Other questions: I think that making sure my vendor understands compliance is one of the questions that I would be asking if I was evaluating a technology partner.
Chris Ryan: So, let’s talk a little bit about Avionté in particular. Can you share more about how Avionté is leveraging AI and automation to empower recruiters in its products, especially right now in 2025?
Joe Hiber: I’m really excited about some of our products that are currently in the early adopter phase and will be coming out real soon, specifically the process around job description creation all the way through chatbot automation.
Let me walk you through an example here. Initially, when a recruiter takes in a job, they can enter in important details such as skills and requirements and ultimately create a job requisition.
In 2025, we’ve added the ability to generate a job description directly from that tool. What AviontéBOLD is doing is leveraging AI to take the data that it has and build a job description for the recruiter. The recruiter then has the ability to review what’s generated and ultimately post that out to the job board.
Now, when talent applies, it is just a matter of clicks that the recruiter has to do to attach a chatbot to the job. When someone applies, they receive a link that they can click and ultimately participate in a pre-screening interview. And what that does for the talent is it gives them an instant engagement point. Now, they have a next step, which is a pre-screen interview.
Based on how that talent responds to that interview, they also have the ability to receive an invite for an in-person interview. So, the talent has next steps clearly defined along the way. They’re not lost in the process. And all that is leveraging our AI and automation to make that just a matter of clicks for the recruiter to set up and ultimately deploy.
Chris Ryan: I have to ask you a little bit about the job description tool. There are a lot of recruiters today who say, “Hey, I can just use ChatGPT.” Why is it better to have the job description and the AI built into the tool itself? What are the advantages to the recruiter or the staffing agency, for that matter?
Joe Hiber: First off, unless you’re using a paid license, you are turning over your data to a third-party provider. You don’t know how they’re going to use that data. So, one caution I would have for anybody who’s listening to this from an agency perspective is to make sure you understand how your staff is using third-party AI tools, and, more importantly, the compliance around that.
Outside of that, why I would use Avionté’s Job Description Creator versus ChatGPT is that we’re taking all the data from the job req itself and using that to build the job description.
We’ve taken all the hard prompt writing part of AI out of the mix for the recruiter and ultimately gave them a nice easy button to push on the screen that’s going to take in the skills, the requirements, the employer details, and build a job description from that.
Chris Ryan: So, you wrote a prompt behind the scenes that assures that the recruiter is going to get a professional outcome that they can look at and review on the spot. Now there’s something you said that sort of chills me a little bit.
Essentially, you’re telling me that if a recruiter goes to ChatGPT and puts in a job description, maybe they accidentally put in a company name, that’s now in the public domain?
Joe Hiber: That’s exactly right. And that’s one of the big fears of using AI in the HR space in general, not just in recruiting, is you’re training the model, especially when using free sites such as ChatGPT or any of the other AI sites. You have to be really careful about how it’s using your data.
Here at Avionté, we’ve selected AI partners that assured us of full compliance with all those pieces, and we’re very protective of what models we use.
Chris Ryan: So, you went out and vetted the artificial intelligence providers that are embedded in the system.
If I understand correctly, the real advantage is everything is organized for the recruiter. It’s right there in the application itself. It’s pulling data that the recruiter has just entered into the space and the discussion with the artificial intelligence entity is entirely private and protected. I think those are important things to point out because right now, everybody is using AI.
So, any other automation or updates to the Avionté ATS that we should be aware of?
Joe Hiber: If you haven’t checked out our Automated ONBOARDING solution, I think that’s another great tool in our tool belt. Being able to automatically send out onboarding packets when certain talent is being hired for specific companies, or just being able to automate that whole onboarding process is a massive time efficiency gain for the recruiter.
No longer do they have to look through the record to see which state or federal forms need to be sent to the talent. No longer do they need to be focused on what specific compliance documents might be for particular employers. All that can be automated and even sent directly to the talent’s mobile device.
So, no longer does somebody need to be clogging up the computer room in a branch office. It’s available to the talent directly on their mobile phone and acts as a place where talent start to engage with the app. Suddenly, you drive up your app engagement if you are utilizing any of our app-based technologies.
Chris Ryan: A lot of these innovations that you’re talking about seem to be highly focused on the communication process between the recruiter and the talent. Why do you think that’s such a critical area to prioritize?
Joe Hiber: Overall, it’s a very low effort to set up, but huge gains when it comes to the talent experience. No longer do you need to keep a sticky note on someone’s desk to say, “Hey, somebody’s starting tomorrow” or “Hey, make sure you call back this person.” The tool is doing it for you.
So, it’s one less thing on the cognitive load to focus on when you know that that step is automated. And we’re still placing the importance of the relationship with the recruiter. So, if there is an issue, yes, absolutely, we want them to give the recruiter a call and resolve it through those means. But it’s just one of those things that we can take off the recruiter’s desk so that they can spend more face time with the talent.
Chris Ryan: Looking ahead, what’s your vision for the future of staffing? Where do you see this going and how do you see the balance between human touch and technology over the next five to 10 years?
Joe Hiber: I think what we’ll see is the recruiter managing a larger set of the workforce. I think that we’re also going to be seeing a lot more tools in the staffing sales space, informing sales folks about what leads to go after and things like that.
Ultimately, you’re going to see not only recruiters being able to work with more talent, but also agencies being able to work with more requisitions. Therefore, we’re going to see this massive increase in those who are using AI technologies coming to the top, and those who might be doing things by pen and paper going to the wayside.
Lastly, I think we’ll see agencies increasingly personalize their tool sets with custom prompt development and other ways these tools can be tailored to fit their specific needs.
Joe Hiber
Director of Product Management for SimpleVMS
Joe Hiber is the Director of Product Management for SimpleVMS, leading the strategic vision and execution of its SaaS-based vendor management platform. In this role, Joe drives product innovation, prioritizes development, and ensures solutions meet client needs. With a track record of bringing new technology to the staffing industry, he previously served as Director of Product at Avionté, leading key initiatives such as the acquisition of SimpleVMS and the launch of Avionté PIXEL, Avionté’s AI-powered chatbot. His leadership has spanned automation, AI, and front-office staffing solutions, shaping the future of recruitment technology.
Before transitioning to staffing technology, Joe worked as a recruiter for agencies including IS Leaders, a Minneapolis-based IT consulting firm, ManpowerGroup, and Spherion Staffing. His firsthand experience in the staffing industry gives him a deep understanding of the challenges recruiters face, which he leverages to develop solutions that improve efficiency and support their success.
Christopher Ryan
Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Avionté
Christopher Ryan leads the Strategy and Marketing functions for Avionté. He brings more than three decades of consulting, thought leadership, and corporate experience in Human Capital Management.
