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April 01, 2020
Newsletter Article
As workplaces move to home offices for many, how does an HR team continue to drive their company’s staffing needs forward when they themselves are under various government mandated restrictions for leaving home and avoiding in-person contact with other people?
Embracing virtual recruiting allows HR teams to continue reaching company goals set for attracting candidates and hiring,but will require using a different set of tactics while Covid-19 continues to change the climate of how business is conducted today.
Keep Recruiting
Now is not the time to stop recruiting. In fact, efforts should be increased to meet the availability of candidates and to continue achieving company objectives to keep progress from stalling. The unfortunate reality of COVID-19 pandemic is the closure of many businesses, which means a higher number of skilled professionals are finding themselves searching for work when they were not before.
Get your jobs posted to your website and on sites like AgCareers.com and CareersInFood.com so resumes continue to flow, and you can act quickly to fill roles. Pausing recruiting efforts will mean missing the increased demand for jobs from candidates currently at home, newly unemployed, or feeling the uncertainly of their current employment situation but with time to devote to seeking out a new position. If you don’t continue your recruiting efforts for those talented individuals that are newly in the market, your competition, who hasn’t paused, will make those key hires.
You have Applicants, Now What?
Interview them! Follow your normal protocols for phone screening and narrow down the candidate pool for round 1 - this process shouldn’t be affected too much by your remote status. Round 2 can get a little tricky if you’ve never setup a video meeting, but companies all over the world are moving quickly in this direction. Web-based programs like Zoom, Go to Meeting and Google Hangouts are low cost, quality programs that will allow your HR team to meet virtually with candidates and management teams regardless of where they are located, and without needing to consider government mandated limits to gathering size. You will be able to create high-quality interviews structured similarly to your in-office interviews.
Consider choosing a program with screen sharing capabilities and ask your candidates to present examples of past projects and create presentations to showcase their skills. There are many advantages to conducting interviews through video meetings, including gauging your candidate’s comfort with technology, interacting in a neutral environment that can help candidates feel at ease, and giving you better access to their personality and interpersonal skills.
We are still at the beginning stages of what could be a lengthy battle controlling the spread of COVID-19 but eventually remote workers will return to the office and teams will gather again in person. Those leadership teams that continue to move business forward, recognizing the need to hire and act on the newly created talent pool, while using technology to quickly fill positions will likely emerge stronger and ahead of those that paused or cut back on their recruiting efforts. Virtual recruiting will not disappear with COVID-19, but will remain a heavily used tool for the savvy HR professional.
