NeonLogic 
COVID-19. It’s the topic on everyone’s lips at the moment, and it’s affecting all industries. Recruitment is no different, with some sectors needng to hire more employees faster than ever, and others freezing recruitment.
Hosted in partnership with NINE, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Indeed hosted a virtual panel of recruiters, to explore how the candidate journey is changing through this unprecedented crisis and discuss how recruiters can adapt to this brave new world.
We compiled a list of the key learnings for Hiring Managers, Talent Acquisition Managers and Recruiters to take away:
Nurture your pipelines
Maybe your business is in a recruitment freeze, with all the roles you were shortlisting now removed.
This is the perfect time to be actively filling your pipeline with top candidates; the panellists mentioned seeing more high-quality passive candidates become open to talking to recruiters, and an increase in personalised cover letters, and applications customised specifically for an organisation.
Acknowledge that job hunting is more emotional
It’s a time of great uncertainty for many, and those organisations who are still in the market for talent may well be noticing a higher volume of applications – and only the same number of hours in the day to respond to them. Typically, 77% of people report a negative perception of a business that doesn’t respond regarding their application.
Take the time to craft your candidate communications, letting candidates know that you’re experiencing a slower than normal turnaround, and setting up a strategy for the regularity which candidates will be communicated with at every step of the process.
Create a temporary section on your careers website, letting applicants know how your business is affected, how you’re dealing with remote working, and any changes to the application process and timings.
Top tips for virtual interviewing
Recruiters and Talent Acquisition Managers are “people’s people” and for many the concept of not physically meeting and interviewing a candidate may feel like a significant barrier to getting to know them.
Two of the top tips to help make the virtual interview process feel smooth and stress-free:
- Take care putting the candidate at ease. Provide as much access to information about the business as possible and talk your candidate through how to use your organisation’s preferred video tool, be it Zoom, Google Hangouts or something else.
- If you or the interviewee’s technology experiences a blip, contact the candidate via another communication method immediately, to let them know that this is fine, and to discuss whether it’s better to immediately resume or rearrange another time
For many, the lack of an in-person interview is a missed opportunity to showcase your office facilities or company culture. Now more than ever, the importance of having a well-developed and well-communicated Employer Brand, and a careers site populated with rich video content comes to the fore.
Onboarding
Interviewing isn’t the only stage of the candidate journey that will be online for the foreseeable future, with new employees needing to be virtually onboarded as well. The panellists’ top tips were to provide more guidance about the onboarding process and an increased range of options for tasks that their new team member could take on. Whatever “welcome to the team” activities that would normally take place could still happen online – perhaps a group morning tea or lunch via video call.
Hiring managers should also be prepared to “re-onboard” these team members once the business resumes working from the office, to ensure that they feel properly welcomed and integrated to their new role.
NeonLogic are proud to work in partnership with platforms like Indeed to ensure our clients feel confident in the success of their interview and onboarding processes, no matter what the circumstances. If you require assistance with exploring the candidate journey for your organisation please feel free to reach out to one of our teams today, we’d love to hear from you.
(Bayview Harbour)