How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affects Recruitment — and What You Can Do in This Unfortunate Situation

The economy is facing difficulties, which will inevitably have a huge impact on how companies recruit new talent. At the same time, many familiar methods, such as face-to-face job interviews, need to be replaced with more innovative methods.

This blog post will give you information about what kind of effects the COVID-19 pandemic has had and will have on recruitment and how you can handle your recruitment processes in the best possible way in this new situation.

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affects Recruitment

Job Interviews Cannot Be Handled Face-to-Face

All over the world, companies are making arrangements for their employees to work remotely from home. The goal is to prevent unnecessary travel and face-to-face interaction. Thus, job interviews cannot be held in the office either.

Onboarding New Employees Must Happen Remotely

We are living in extraordinary times, but we still have new employees starting at our companies who we need to onboard. It is not so simple to provide a great onboarding experience without meeting face-to-face or giving a tour at the office. Yet, it is possible.

Layoffs, Fewer Available Positions, and More Open Applications

Layoffs lead to more people being unemployed, which is a very unfortunate situation. Thus, there will be more candidates applying for jobs. Because companies are making fewer positions available, candidates will start sending more open applications.

People Will Be Less Open to Changing Jobs

Sourcing candidates can become more difficult. If a person has a full-time contract with their current employer, their willingness to change will decline. People will value security over uncertainty during the crisis. At the same time, those top talents who fear their current employers’ potential layoffs may be now more open towards new career opportunities.

How You Can Handle your Recruitment Processes During COVID-19

Utilize Live Video Interviews or Recorded Video Interviews

You have two options: conduct your interviews online live or use recorded video interviews. How do they differ?

Live interviews can be conducted with Skype, Zoom, or other video call platforms. Recorded interviews, on the other hand, are a combination of pre-recorded questions created by the recruiter and answers recorded by the job candidates. We can help you with both options.

Did you know that our end-to-end recruitment software has a convenient integration with RecRight? The integration allows you to integrate live online interviews or recorded interviews as a seamless part of your recruitment process. Contact us to learn more.

Engage New Employees with Online Pre-Onboarding Processes

Gather the materials you would normally offer the employee during their first workday and make them digital.

Instead of handling your onboarding at the office, you can create an online pre-onboarding process for your new employees. Gather the materials you would normally hand the employee during their first workday and make them digital. The package can include a company culture handbook, videos about the team, or questionnaires for ordering work tools.

The easiest way to do this is to use a pre-onboarding software that gathers all this information into one place. You can also define a schedule for the employee that guides them through a certain path (Day 1: Read chapters 1–3, Day 2: Read chapters 4–5, etc.).

TalentAdore’s pre-onboarding module kickstarts new hire preboarding before the first day at work. With our easy-to-use editor, anyone can create stunning and interactive handbooks for new employees. In addition to text, you can include various forms, such as Typeform or Google Forms, to ask for feedback or collect relevant employee related information.

Make Your Recruitment Process More Efficient

Are you prepared to handle the increasing number of open applications?

Handling your recruitment process with email or old-fashioned recruitment software is never a good decision. During this crisis, it is more important than ever to have modern recruitment tools to help you sort the increasing number of applications and still maintain a great employer brand. People take it very personally how you handle them.

You need to be able to communicate with your recruitment team and hiring managers online and keep track of your candidates. Modern HR tech and AI can help you to automatically pre-screen candidates, communicate with them about how the recruitment process is going, and make sure that all information is accessible by all stakeholders.

Start Building Your Talent Community

People are spending their days at home on their computers. You can get their attention with cleverly targeted ads.

We all hope that the situation will start to normalize by or after summer. How can you prepare for that? We encourage you to start building your Talent Community. Use recruitment marketing tactics, such as paid ads, social media channels, and referrals, to attract passive candidates to join your Talent Community. People are staying at home on their computers. With cleverly targeted ads, you can get their attention.

When it is the right time to recruit new talent, in the summer or fall, you should have a ready-made pool of interested candidates you can select from. You can start contacting them immediately instead of starting from scratch. You will save money, time and energy. Above all, you are likely to find people who match better with your actual needs.

TalentAdore offers a great recruitment solution for building and growing your Talent Community. Gather referrals, source candidates (i.e. create automated shortlists) within your community with the help of AI, and invite candidates to apply for your open positions. Request our demo to learn more.