The Power Combo: How AI and Traditional Recruiters Together Create a Stronger Hiring Process

AI is reshaping hiring, but its true power emerges when combined with human judgment. Leaders across the recruitment technology space share how this partnership is redefining the future of talent acquisition.

The conversation begins with the undeniable reality that AI is already embedded in modern recruitment—whether employers realise it or not.

Sadhvi Sharma, Co-Founder of TheHireHub.AI, commented, “AI in recruiting is no longer a futuristic concept; it is already part of your employment process, whether you know it or not. It may be your ATS's résumé screener, a chatbot that answers candidate enquiries, or an interview scheduling tool that works automatically. So the true question isn't ‘Should we use AI for hiring?’ This: ‘How do we use AI with human recruiters to make hiring faster and smarter, without turning it cold and robotic?’”

She explains that the real value lies not in replacing recruiters, but in freeing them. She emphasizes the “combination model,” where AI handles high-volume, repetitive tasks, creating space for humans to do meaningful work.

As she notes, “The sweet spot is a combination model. AI should perform the repetitive, rules-based labour that consumes time and energy: scanning hundreds of résumés, determining basic eligibility, providing reminders and updates, and scheduling interviews. These are things that machines excel at. When you delegate that task to AI, time-to-hire decreases, cost-per-hire improves, and recruiters no longer spend half of their day buried in administrative tasks and email. They get to direct their efforts towards areas where they can make a real difference.”

Despite the efficiency gains, she makes it clear that AI must never replace human judgment in evaluating people.

She warns, “What AI should not do is determine who ‘deserves’ the job. Humans must maintain solid control over this situation. Recruiters and hiring managers are still needed for everything that involves judgement and complexity, such as understanding culture and team fit, reading between the lines in talks, identifying promise in non-traditional profiles, and developing genuine connections with prospects. A human can perceive development and resilience in a tangled professional path, whereas an algorithm may only see a mismatch.”

Her perspective also highlights the ethical risks of overreliance on automated decision-making.

“There’s also a risk angle we can’t ignore. If AI is trained on biased historical data and nobody checks it, it can quietly repeat and amplify those biases at scale. That’s why humans shouldn’t just use AI; they should oversee it—setting the rules, questioning its outputs, and making sure the process stays fair and explainable. In practice, the formula is simple: let AI clear the path, and let humans choose who walks through the door. Done right, AI doesn’t replace recruiters; it upgrades them. The future of hiring isn’t AI versus humans, it’s AI-powered humans building stronger teams, faster. Eventually AI will not replace managers, but managers who use AI will replace those who don’t.”

This balance between machine efficiency and human oversight is echoed across the industry.

Bringing another lens to the discussion, Mr. Rajesh Rai, Co-founder & CEO of ExpertOps AI, reinforces how AI and people together create a stronger, fairer system.

He added, “The future of talent acquisition lies in a partnership between AI and traditional recruiters, revolutionizing how we hire. AI automates routine tasks like resume screening, interview scheduling, and candidate data analysis, allowing recruiters to focus on evaluating cultural fit and building meaningful relationships. This combination blends data-driven accuracy with human empathy, resulting in a more efficient and fair hiring process. AI supports strategic workforce planning by helping organizations identify future skill needs and proactively close gaps through workforce development.”

He also points out that AI’s ability to minimize unconscious bias and improve transparency is a major step toward inclusive hiring. As he states, “Additionally, AI tools reduce unconscious bias and enhance candidate experience, promoting inclusivity and transparency throughout recruitment. The success of this hybrid model depends on recruiters continually enhancing their AI understanding and ethical use, ensuring human judgment remains central. Together, AI and recruiters create an agile, resilient workforce prepared for the evolving future of work, balancing machine efficiency with human insight for superior hiring outcomes.”

While AI accelerates screening, scheduling, and assessment, the human element remains the heart of a positive hiring journey.

This synergy is further illustrated by Taru Shikha, Founder & CEO of Avron (HiredNext Avron Pvt. Ltd.), who draws from her own evolution in the recruitment world—from landline phones to language models.

She says, “In today’s hiring environment, the winning advantage is not technology alone and it is not human intuition alone. It is the way the two are brought together. I began my career matching resumes with a landline and a Rolodex. Today, recruiters work alongside language models that never sleep. The magic lies in letting each do what it does best. AI can sift through fifty thousand profiles in minutes, surface the fifty that truly fit, and then step aside so a human can still ask, ‘Where do you see yourself in five years.’ That single question reveals ambition, fear, humour and intent, data no algorithm has learned to weigh. When we blend the two, time to hire drops by 38%, but the bigger win is the candidate who says, ‘They saw me, not just my keywords.’”

Her experience underscores a simple truth: empathy and intuition can never be automated. She adds, “The recruiters who will thrive are not the ones racing against machines. They are the ones who know when to hand over the keyboard and when to close the laptop and listen. Our responsibility is to keep this partnership ethical, to teach the model our values, and to teach our teams to question the model. If we get that balance right, the future of hiring is not man versus machine. It is man plus machine versus the old bottleneck of ‘we will get back to you.’”

Taken together, these perspectives reveal a shared belief: the future of hiring is not about choosing AI over people. It’s about designing a recruitment ecosystem where both complement each other—AI accelerates the process, and humans elevate it.