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The past few months have seen a major upheaval to business operations, work models and the recruitment landscape. But as we are getiing used to the new normal, it’s time to put your focus back on your recruitment strategy for the future. Leaving your hiring strategy and planning too late means you risk losing out on top talent once the market improves and recovers. Why? Because your competitors were first movers.
What steps should you take to begin rebuilding your teams? How should you look to connect with qualified job seekers?
We examine the key considerations to make when recruitment planning and hiring staff in a post-COVID world.
1. Hire for flexible roles
We don’t know exactly what the post-COVID landscape will look like. The rapid changes we’ve seen to job roles and ways of working could be here to stay, at least in part. As it stands, however, it’s difficult to say what the pandemic’s ongoing effects on industries will be, and how this continues to shape our new reality.
Given the uncertainty of the future, recruiting for flexible roles will be critical to ensuring you have the capability to shift priorities as business needs change.
In the coming months, seeking out candidates with broad expertise, an adaptable attitude and a willingness to tackle varied responsibilities could be the key difference maker in your recruitment strategy.
2. Reevaluate your employee value proposition
One of the big outcomes of people spending so much time at home – and many losing their jobs – is that professionals are now rethinking what’s important to them in a career and the company they work for.
Considering the recent widespread shift to remote work, many candidates will be expecting workplace flexibility as standard in any role – including the ability to work from home or remotely and flexible hours. We’re also likely to see more candidates considering the ethos and social impact of a company before applying for a job.
In light of this, recruiting top candidates will come down to presenting an attractive employee value proposition – or EVP – grounded in flexibility and corporate social responsibility. If these factors aren’t part of the ‘package’ you present to candidates in a post-COVID landscape, you could risk losing the race for top talent.
3. Take your recruitment online
Gone are the days when a phone call was all it took to connect with the most qualified candidates for a role. More than ever, a successful recruitment process encompasses many working parts – most of them now online.
To find and connect with the best candidates post-COVID, you’ll need to cover all bases. External recruitment expertise, social media, job listings, industry forums, webinars and more can work together to reach talent at every stage of their job search.
Also keep in mind that virtual interviewing is now the norm, and for the foreseeable future many candidates will expect to be interviewed exclusively by video call or over the phone. Fortunately, there are time and cost savings to be had from this approach – so you may find that incorporating virtual interviewing actually makes the hiring process more efficient.
4. Broaden your talent pool
The shift to remote work has proven that location doesn’t have to be a deciding factor in the recruitment process. Where the search for the perfect candidate used to be constricted by geography, companies now have the opportunity to tap into a global talent pool.
If the roles you are hiring for can be carried out remotely, the world is your oyster when it comes to finding the cream of the talent crop for your teams.
