8 Digital Recruitment Strategies To Change Post Covid
It’s all very well to announce that your company is ‘going digital’, but what about your hiring strategy? If there’s one thing the covid-19 pandemic taught us all, it’s that businesses must embrace organisational agility if they want to survive. To keep up, companies need talented people in place who will drive their business forward. Moreover, the employer with the most competitive digital recruitment strategies will be the one who wins in securing tech talent.
8 Digital Recruitment Strategies to Change Post Covid
Adapt to the Changing Recruitment Landscape
The labour market now is not the same landscape we were recruiting in two years ago. The way we work has changed, employee expectations have changed, and the demand for skilled professionals is far greater than pre-pandemic.
Of course, we are far from being out of the woods as far as fighting covid is concerned, but experts are optimistic that its resilience is waning. However long it may last, your business strategies undoubtedly project beyond the end of the crisis. Therefore, your hiring strategies must reflect this.
Due to the abundance of jobs available, there is an increase in hiring competition. Candidates can afford to be picky about the roles they apply for and expect more from employers than before.
Pre-pandemic, many employees were requesting some degree of remote working in their benefits package. Throughout the pandemic, they have become used to working from home and having proven they are capable of doing so, they don’t understand why that can’t continue. Many are even leaving employers for the sole reason that they have anxiety about being called back to the workplace.
In a post-covid-19 world, the future of work is likely to be based on a hybrid model. The most successful employers will be the ones who embrace that.
Plan Ahead
Many business leaders don’t see hiring as a priority and wait until they have a hiring need before advertising their role. Hiring when you urgently need to fill critical positions is far too late. Many talented tech professionals are in contracts with three months’ notice periods, which could leave a business lacking essential skills for at least six months. That is, of course, taking into account time to hire.
Employers must embrace hiring as part of their long term growth strategy to achieve their business goals.
Know Who You’re Looking For
One of the biggest mistakes we see our clients make is interviewing several unsuitable candidates before understanding what their ideal candidate looks like.
Employers must spend time with their hiring managers and HR professionals before going to market. They must identify the critical skills needed to support new business goals. It helps to create a candidate persona by asking questions like; what qualities does this person have, and what will they contribute to the business? Without having this in place, they’re putting themselves at risk of enormous setbacks.
Lacking the understanding of who you’re looking for risks wasting endless management person-hours throughout the interview process. Not only that, but it risks damaging your employer brand and reduces the talent pool available to you long term.
Ask for Expert Help Early
Gone are the days when companies advertise a vacancy and qualified applicants apply. The best candidates for your vacancy are sitting tight in their jobs and won’t apply for your role unless you give them a good reason to.
Recruitment consultancies have specialist technical resourcers working on this around the clock looking for these passive candidates. So why waste valuable time and money trying to recruit in-house?
Your HR leaders are, no doubt, experts in their field. However, they don’t have the time or know-how to devote to endless hours of candidate resourcing. In trying to manage this part of the recruitment process yourself, you’ll be competing with highly skilled professionals who do.
Hire Digitally
Every company has one thing on their mind at present — post covid growth. There is, therefore, an abundance of jobs available. If employers want candidates to apply for their roles, they need to make their candidate experience as smooth as possible.
Applicant tracking systems make it easier than ever for candidates to apply with one click. A good ATS will also help you market your roles. If you’re looking for a digital recruitment strategy to change post covid, this is one to work on long-term.
Applicant tracking systems can be expensive, and finding one that suits your needs takes a great deal of research. So if you don’t have an ATS installed already, it can be easier and cheaper to piggyback off the capability of a reputable recruitment firm in the short term.
Interview Digitally
During the pandemic, many employers switched to virtual interviewing. Video interviewing has saved our clients so much time that we predict that it will be around for good.
If you’re not already interviewing your candidates online, this is an easy digital recruitment strategy to get on board with. Not only does it save time in the interview room, it also speeds up the hiring process.
Make Faster Hiring Decisions
Some businesses take so long to make hiring decisions post-interview that they lose candidates to their competitors. This is a crying shame when tech talent is so scarce, to begin with.
Now that we’ve all got the hang of zoom during the pandemic, there’s absolutely no excuse for leaving candidates waiting for a decision. HR teams should have time booked in with their hiring managers straight away following an interview. At that point, the facts are still fresh in everyone’s minds, therefore, making it easier to make faster hiring decisions.
Work on Your Employer Brand
Companies need a strong employer brand if they want to attract applications from top candidates. The easiest way for employers to develop their employment brand is to promote their existing employee experience.
Why do your existing employees love working for you? Any employer who can’t answer that question will have a problem attracting top talent.
A Few Final Thoughts on Changing Digital Recruitment Strategies
If your business hasn’t yet thought about changing its digital recruitment strategies to keep up with post-pandemic trends, now is the time. Even before covid struck, digital hiring was increasing in popularity. Now it’s just what candidates expect. Therefore, employers who are not advertising, accepting applications, interviewing and onboarding online will lose top talent to competing recruiters.
Don’t underestimate how much help you can get from recruitment consultancies in this regard. If they already have the digital capability in place, you’ll likely get a big boost from working with them.
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