How AI Is Changing the Way Businesses Find and Hire Talent

Hiring the right person has never been as simple as posting a job and waiting for the perfect résumé to arrive.

For recruiters and HR teams, the process can mean sorting through hundreds of applications, managing multiple hiring steps, chasing references, and trying to determine which candidates genuinely fit the role. As businesses move faster and talent needs become more specialized, traditional recruitment methods are facing a new challenge: how to make hiring more efficient without losing the human judgment behind every important decision.

This is where artificial intelligence is beginning to change the game.

At Jobstreet Connect, the recent hirer convention hosted by Jobstreet by SEEK, more than 200 business leaders, HR practitioners, and industry decision-makers gathered to discuss how organizations can turn AI from an emerging technology into a practical business advantage.

With the theme “Turning AI into Organizational Advantage,” the event highlighted a question increasingly relevant to employers across the region: how can businesses use AI to make hiring faster, smarter, and more relevant to their actual needs?

Jobstreet by SEEK offered one answer through seekAi, its proprietary AI engine designed specifically for employment.

The hiring challenges businesses are trying to solve

For many recruiters, the biggest challenge is not a shortage of applications. It is finding the right applications among a sea of candidates.

Jobstreet by SEEK highlighted several recruitment pain points that continue to affect employers, including low-quality candidates, limited time, complicated hiring workflows, and rising recruitment costs.

These challenges are pushing more businesses to look toward technology for practical solutions.

According to Jobstreet’s Hiring, Compensation & Benefits Report 2025, 27% of employers across Southeast Asia have adopted AI tools in their recruitment processes. In the Philippines, adoption is even higher at 39%, making the country the regional leader in AI recruitment adoption.

For businesses already using AI, the technology is helping reshape recruitment by improving hiring speed and efficiency, supporting more precise job matching, and reducing the amount of time recruiters spend on repetitive administrative work.

But the bigger opportunity may be moving beyond simple automation.

Jobstreet by SEEK introduces seekAi for smarter hiring

Designed specifically for the employment market, seekAi brings AI directly into the hiring workflow on Jobstreet by SEEK.

The technology draws on more than 25 years of market intelligence and 750 million daily candidate and employer signals across Asia Pacific. By using these employment-specific signals, seekAi is designed to help employers make more informed hiring decisions while connecting with suitable talent more quickly.

Rather than treating every employer and every vacancy the same way, the platform is designed to understand that hiring needs can vary significantly from one organization to another.

That approach comes to life through two key capabilities: Personalised Targeting and Assist.

Personalised Targeting looks beyond basic keyword matching

Traditional recruitment can depend heavily on keywords.

A recruiter posts a position, applications come in, and the team begins filtering candidates based on qualifications and other criteria. While this approach can help narrow the field, it may not fully capture what makes a candidate a strong fit for a particular business.

seekAi’s Personalised Targeting is designed to take a more tailored approach.

The feature learns what high-fit talent looks like for an individual business by considering role requirements, preferences, and historical hiring activity. It also combines these signals with real-time candidate intent data.

According to Jobstreet by SEEK, this can proactively connect employers with candidates who are up to five times more likely to apply.

For recruiters, the goal is straightforward: spend less time guessing where the right candidates are and more time engaging with people who could genuinely fit the role.

From recruitment automation to an always-on AI hiring partner

AI in recruitment is often associated with automating individual tasks.

But seekAi Assist takes a broader approach.

Instead of simply responding to one request at a time, Assist is designed to support complex, multi-step recruitment workflows. It can respond to context, anticipate what may need to happen next, and adapt based on hiring behavior.

That means recruiters can spend less time on repetitive administration and more time on the human side of recruitment.

Assist can support activities across the hiring journey, including AI pre-screening voice interviews, smart applicant ranking, next-best-action guidance, and automated reference checks.

The objective is not to remove people from the hiring process. Instead, the technology is designed to help recruiters manage the operational workload while keeping final hiring decisions firmly in human hands.

“We believe that AI should make hiring better, not busier. By combining employment-specific data with agentic AI built directly into the workflow, seekAi is designed to reduce friction, improve talent matching, and give leaders more time so they can focus on what matters most: their people,” said Dannah Majarocon, Managing Director of Jobstreet by SEEK.

AI and the future of work go beyond recruitment

The conversation at Jobstreet Connect also looked beyond hiring technology itself.

For organizations adopting AI, the challenge is not simply choosing the right tools. Leaders also need to consider how people work alongside AI, how employees develop new capabilities, and how technology can become part of a sustainable workplace strategy.

During the event, Liza Manalo-Mapagu, CEO of ASEAMETRICS and Chair of the AI and Innovation Committee of the People Management Association of the Philippines, delivered a keynote focused on leading people through human-AI collaboration.

The discussion reflected a broader shift taking place across workplaces. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into business operations, organizations are having to rethink not only their technology strategies but also how they prepare and support their people.

Salary expectations are also reshaping talent decisions

Technology may be changing how employers find candidates, but compensation and workplace expectations continue to influence whether employees stay.

At Jobstreet Connect, Joey Yusingco, Head of Country Marketing at Jobstreet by SEEK, presented findings from the Salary Pulse 2026 Insights.

The session examined how changing salary expectations, workplace flexibility, and clear career growth opportunities can influence talent retention and workforce confidence.

For employers, these factors underline an important reality: finding qualified talent is only one part of the challenge. Businesses also need to create conditions that encourage people to remain and grow within the organization.

Building an AI ready organization

Other industry leaders at the event shared perspectives on how businesses can integrate AI into different areas of organizational development.

Holy Ampaguey, CHRO of DITO Telecommunity; Ralph Vincent Regalado, Chief AI Officer of Kollab; and Kin Enriquez, Risk & Compliance Manager, GRC of Emerson ROHQ, discussed practical approaches to using AI in talent development, organizational culture, risk management, and scalable business growth.

Together, the conversations pointed to a broader role for AI in the workplace.

It is no longer simply about automating a single task. For many organizations, the bigger opportunity is figuring out where AI can remove friction, support better decisions, and give people more time to focus on work that requires human judgment.

A more human approach to AI powered hiring

Recruitment will always involve people.

Technology can help identify potential candidates, organize information, automate repetitive processes, and provide useful recommendations. But decisions about who joins an organization remain deeply connected to human judgment, culture, values, and relationships.

That is the thinking behind seekAi.

By combining employment-specific data, personalized targeting, and agentic AI within the hiring workflow, Jobstreet by SEEK is positioning AI as a tool that can work alongside recruiters rather than simply replace manual processes.

As businesses across the Philippines and Southeast Asia continue to adopt AI, the next chapter of recruitment may not be about choosing between technology and people.

It may be about using technology to give people more time to do what they do best: understand talent, build relationships, and make thoughtful hiring decisions.

To learn more about seekAi and Jobstreet by SEEK’s AI-powered hiring solutions, visit Jobstreet by SEEK at www.jobstreet.com.ph or follow Jobstreet Philippines on social media.