The COVID-19 pandemic is quickly changing how every organization is attracting, recruiting, and retaining employees on their virtual teams, making remote work the new normal.
Recruiting in a post pandemic world can get challenging. At this time of the year, many organizations focus on recruiting the best and brightest college seniors they can attract during in-person interviews on campus.
That is no longer an option today. Virtual career fairs are the new on-campus hiring. There are some ways to excel in this new virtual era.
4 Ways To Excel in Recruiting in Post Pandemic World
1. Master Video-Interviewing
In the absence of a face-to-face connection, video interviewing is your number one opportunity to get to know your candidates.
But not everyone is comfortable in front of a camera. And video calling software is prone to glitches.
Some of the good practices to have while interviewing candidates virtually are:
- Make sure you provide all the information the candidate needs in the interview invitation
- Have Plan B, just in case the connection interrupts
- Be the first person to show up on the call, so when the candidate joins the virtual room you are present to ease them
- Make sure the environment around you is quiet and you do not have many interruptions before you take the call
- Ease the start of the interview by engaging the candidate into ice-breaking chats and then make sure you end the interview by establishing a clear way to follow-up with you
2. Elongate the hiring process
Getting to know someone takes time and candidates are no different. But when you factor in the distance and virtual communication of remote hiring, you may want to consider devoting extra time to this process.
Even if that means adding an extra step or booking a longer interview time slot, a longer process will help you get to know your remote candidates better.
Considering you won’t see the new hire every day, it is important to make sure that we get a good feel of the person before they start with your team.
Especially, when you factor in the importance of getting your hires right the first time around!
3. Use a collaborative hiring approach
Collaborative hiring is a great way to get your team involved in the process, be it a remote hire or not. However, in order to get a deep insight into the candidate’s skill, personality, and experience it will be worthwhile to involve the team at an early stage.
Also, future teammates will have the opportunity to assess, evaluate, and get to know potential remote hires. This will help you ensure that the remote hire is a good skill fit, in addition to a cultural fit for the potential team.
4. Customize your question set
Some of the most common questions asked to a candidate during screening are based on the culture fit or behavioral skillset. However, you might want to add some more questions to that list making them more apt to the current dynamic times. For example, …
- To test communication: How do you stay in touch with colleagues or supervisors when you don’t get to see them every day?
- To test autonomous working: What did you do when a manager was absent and you had to make a decision?
- To test team collaboration: How would you handle team collaboration when everyone on your team is working from different places, time zones, and has a different professional as well as cultural background?
Remote work is a trend that recruiters can’t ignore anymore. However, remote work is not for everyone. Make sure your candidates know how to work effectively and have the necessary qualities to be successful in doing so.
