Currently, in our newfound Recruitment Reality, all HR professionals and leaders in many companies are busy supporting the welfare of the employees and ensuring that organizational communications are up to date and reaching everyone within your company at fast as possible. In the meantime, managers are busy guiding newly-formed remote teams through the major cultural shift of working from home, causing recruitment activities to freeze temporarily or even to come to a full stop in many organizations.
Recruiting during a Crisis
During this crisis, it’s understood that business needs will change, and most companies will be affected in some way, shape, or form. It may seem reasonable to freeze recruiting due to a lack of remote working policies, a lack of tools/processes to get everything done remotely, or even due to a lack of familiarity with virtual onboarding options. However, completely freezing the recruitment process is more of a panic response, and will hurt the company in the long run, even if it may seem like a sensible survival option now. It will affect not only your employer value proposition but also your hiring process after we all get through this crisis.
In fact, when this crisis is over, recruiting will become even more vital, especially when we all need to do more with less. So, during this time when we are starting to settle in our newfound reality for the foreseeable future, it might be worth asking yourself these questions:
- How do we attract and engage candidates during an ongoing crisis?
- What will be the effect of a recruitment flux?
- What actions can we take now to be best positioned in the coming months as the situation continues to change?
First and foremost, finding the right answers about how to continue recruitment efforts will not be an easy task. Everyone is dealing with a new reality, and everyone is searching for answers to avoid making mistakes. But even how bad and uncertain the situation is, the economy will recover, and you will need the best people to help to keep your company and our economy going. Choosing a recruitment strategy to overcome unpredictable challenges by taking action – even in a recruiting freeze – will be essential to help you to scale up the recruitment efforts when this crisis is finally over. Here are some viewpoints and action steps to help you decide what recruitment effort will work best for your company during this time of crisis.
Stay in control of your recruitment process even in a freeze
Doing nothing and stopping recruitment activities completely may hurt your company. Even if you decide to do no new direct recruiting for the short term, you need to something to keep potential future candidates engaged. Start by determining how and where to communicate this recruitment statement with candidates.
Giving periodic updates about the way you see recruitment in the foreseeable future is a good way to stay in touch with the in-demand talent of the job market. Let candidates know why your company is choosing to stop the hiring process, and be open and honest about what’s changed because of the coronavirus.
Action steps you can control during a recruitment freeze:
- Review your recruitment content calendar, jobs posted, and any videos and blogs to be posted to make sure everything fits your current situation.
- Create valuable crisis communication content to utilize in the coming weeks.
- Create a FAQ for candidates during the coronavirus.
- Continue to publish content online where potential candidates can stay informed.
A temporary hiring freeze doesn’t mean a freeze on all candidate interactions. People are craving information and frequent communication. Delivering that now will be something they can appreciate and remember later. Recruitment in a crisis is an opportunity to show compassion.
Still, hiring during a Coronavirus pandemic?
Candidate engagement has never been so critical as now. Have an open dialogue with the candidate and answer questions as quickly as possible regarding onboarding, remote working conditions, etc. It’s important not to lose a candidate in the process due to fear of switching in a down economy or lack of communication. Moreover, it’s important to start understanding the frame of mind of your ideal candidate and learning what is crucial for them to know or hear from you.
Action steps you can control when you are recruiting in a crisis:
- Over-deliver on your candidate experienceand employer brand value.
- Create compelling candidate-centric content that drives compassion, provides stability, and gives hope.
- Understand we all are first humans and people who still are looking for a new role during a crisis need clarity and consistency in post-application communications.
- Start building a pipeline of potential candidates who are still interested in new opportunities.
- Build candidate relationships in uncertain times, people are scared and anxious. We can make the recruitment process safe and easy, making that leap of faith of switching companies during a crisis seem less daunting.
We need to move forward, together
Change is never easy, and especially in a time when we don’t control the outcomes. We all must make critical decisions about our jobs, business, and life, and take action to move forward. The reality is that most businesses will not have the time to wait this crisis out. We need to adapt fast and continue to move forward while adjusting to the new normal, even if it means that the entire recruitment process needs to change. The human-centric approach will more crucial than ever before to win over talent.
Recruitment will not be solely about being a great place to work. Hiring in a crisis means all the human factors involved in changing jobs will come into play. People will not change jobs overnight, and therefore the recruitment communications will need to integrate compassion, show stability, and use a tone that will give hope.
In order to adapt and hire the best, you must build clarity and consistency in your recruitment process and help candidates navigate the uncertain waters. We are here to help you hire the best talent in the job market and provide you with valuable insights, knowledge, and expertise on candidate behavior to help you move forward.