Automated recruitment covers two quite different things that share a name, and a small employer is well served by keeping them apart. The first is automating the administration: acknowledging applications, moving applicants between stages, booking interviews, sending reminders and rejections, and keeping one record instead of three. This is where the hours are, and on the worked example a desk spends 120 hours across six hires, about a third of a $16,800 total. The second is automating the selection itself, where software scores, ranks or filters candidates on merit. That is a decision about a person, it carries fairness and legal considerations, and the EEOC's guidance on employment tests and selection procedures is the place to start rather than a vendor's page. This site takes a clear position on the split: the administration is worth automating and the sheets here measure the benefit; the decision is a human one and nothing on this site advises on automating it. This page sets out what sits on each side of that line.
Safely automatable
Acknowledgements, stage moves, scheduling, reminders, rejections and record-keeping. None of these decides anything about a candidate's merit; all of them cost hours. These are also the steps a candidate notices most: an acknowledgement that arrives in a minute rather than a week changes the impression of the employer at no cost to anybody.
Not this site's advice to automate
Scoring, ranking, filtering on predicted performance and anything that removes a candidate from consideration without a person. That is a selection procedure, and how it may lawfully be built and validated is a question for your employment adviser.
Measure the first, do not guess the second
The cost per hire and time to hire sheets here will tell you what the administration was costing. There is no equivalent sheet for the second kind, on purpose. If you want to know whether the administration is worth automating, price the hours and compare. If you want to know whether a selection tool is lawful and fair, that is a question for your employment adviser and not for arithmetic.
Questions people ask about automated recruitment
Is automated screening legal?
It is a regulated area rather than a simple yes or no, and this site does not advise on it. The EEOC's guidance on employment tests and selection procedures is the starting point, and your employment lawyer is the finishing one.
What can I automate with no risk?
The administration listed above. Acknowledging an application faster disadvantages nobody. Booking an interview through a self-service link disadvantages nobody either, and both remove hours that are pure administration.
Will automation improve my hires?
It improves the speed and the record. Whether it improves who you hire depends on the judgement you apply, which is the part that is not automated here.