New Delhi, Aug 23 (IANS): A whopping 96.5 per cent of recruiters at Indian startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India believe that the use of AI is one of the best ways to improve the recruitment process and eliminate bias from the hiring process, a report showed on Tuesday.

About 50 per cent of recruiters believe that AI will become a regular part of their hiring process in the coming years, said the report by chat-based direct hiring platform Hirect.

While 52 per cent of the recruiters said building a diverse workforce is necessary to address the huge disparity in the representation of women in leadership roles, 97.4 per cent of them believe that skill-based hiring is the future.

About 87 per cent of recruiters are "in favour of retaining old employees instead of hiring new ones".

"In the employee-driven market, the employers must quickly adapt to the current reality of talent acquisition to remain competitive in today's labour market," said Raj Das, Global Co-founder and CEO of Hirect India.

This includes creating a workplace that aligns with jobseekers' needs while also leveraging the right system, tool and channels to effectively grow their organisations/startups, he mentioned.

The hiring process in startups also relies on referrals and that is why startups formulate referral policies.

Around 88.2 per cent of recruiters believe that referral is the best way to hire people with the right talents, said the report.