There’s no sugarcoating it; COVID-19 has changed the way we live our lives! But what can we expect in recruiting in a post-pandemic world?
In the beginning, it was hard to see the Brightside and the good that could come out of this, but as the months went by and “normal life” started resuming, we could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Aren’t we all so thankful to feel the economy’s pulse again? Thanks to vaccine rollouts, we are starting to see the job market stabilize again. But the way candidates and jobseekers view work has changed drastically in this post-pandemic (if we can call it that) era.
Employees got a taste of what work-life means when they are not forced to be in the office or commute for 1.5 hours one way on a stuffy bus to get to work. Workers were to complete their day-to-day tasks from home, showing them they didn’t need to be in the office to get things done as long as there was a solid internet connection. Things can still move forward without face-to-face interviews, and people enjoy the freedom of working from home.
What does this mean for recruitment processes in the post-pandemic world? Let’s dig in!
As we all know, the recruitment space is ever-changing and adopting new screening, interviewing, and sourcing for candidates. But this is the first time in history that some of the more traditional aspects of recruitment had to change altogether. If you have spent your entire career recruiting, you most likely feel like a whirlwind of change has hit you, and you are not wrong. Many of the changes are most likely here to stay, even if it becomes more of a hybrid of in-person and virtual!
Take, for example, the heavy reliance on virtual interviewing and remote work. If you look at it from the pre-pandemic world, it sounds preposterous that all interviews would be conducted remotely. How do you gauge a person’s excitement if you cannot read their body language in an interview? How can you tell their professionalism if there’s a chance they are wearing sweatpants with their button-down shirt? If you hire somebody to work remotely, can you trust them to adhere to the 9 to 5 working schedule so they can rightfully earn their pay?
The truth is you can’t, and it may make you feel out of control. However, remote work and virtual interviewing are here to stay. Employers are already having a hard time getting their employees to go back to the office. Like Bloomberg says, people aren’t ready to give up remote work and processes just yet. They’d rather just quit.
Although the vast adoption of virtual interviewing began as a counter-crisis measure, it brought some hidden benefits to the fore. Here’s what you stand to gain.
Virtual interviews eliminate traveling hassles. It’s strenuous for candidates to move back and forth from one interview session to another. Virtual screenings save the candidates and the interviewer the time and money used in travel.
The idea with virtual interviews is not to move the entire recruitment process online. The last bits of the discussion will be face-to-face, while most parts of the interview remain virtual.
If you thought online interviewing was convenient, working from home has proven to be too beneficial to give up, and it could help boost your talent acquisition and retention strategy.
It turns out a healthy chunk of your employees won’t like it very much if you tell them they need to get back to the office. According to the same Bloomberg article, 39% of them are ready to quit if they choose that route, and the figure goes up 10% among the millennials and Gen Zers in your team.
It’s not hard to imagine why they won’t give it up. Except for skipping subway discomforts, traffic, and commute times –depending on how they get to the office –about 33% of remote work lovers interviewed said they save up to $5000 annually.
There’s more: remote workers limit exposure to COVID-19 way more than their counterparts who work from the office. Other than that, they get to be around their family and pets more and multitask to take care of their kids. These perks may be why 70% of America’s workforce will work remotely by 2025.
It may sound like the work-from-home idea was solely meant to cater to employee needs. Well, it may not be such a bad idea to make it part of the work package in the post-pandemic world.
Employees have been quitting at a 2.7% rate in 2021 -the worst this country has seen since 2000, and remote work has everything to do with it. It’s like employees are saying, ‘it’s nothing personal, but I can’t afford to be inflexible, and work remote allows employees that flexibility.’
With that said, it’s time for recruiters to gravitate more toward ensuring that the job market is candidate-driven.
How? Feeding the need for flexibility among candidates, including working from home, allows candidates to gain an advantage in the hiring process and a robust recruiting strategy. These things are required if organizations are to meet their hiring and staffing needs.
The future of recruitment is not remote or onsite either-it’s hybrid. Recruitment in a post-pandemic world will have candidates that expect the following.
Granted, the pandemic-induced changes in how we recruit employees won’t be the last ones we see -but change is the nature of the world. It’s better to move with it, especially when the benefits are glaringly apparent. Plus, there’s always a host of intelligent tools you can use to hire the clever way. You can get the best AI and machine learning hiring tools at Loxo. Contact us today to learn more.
