Recruiters had a challenging year last year. The pandemic and its consequences wreaked havoc on some talent acquisition teams, instilled new expectations in others, and served as a watershed point for many, as virtually recruiting and onboarding a remote workforce became the new norm.
The challenges of 2020 & 2021 will undoubtedly influence talent acquisition patterns in 2022. More businesses will use virtual recruiting tools, focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and move their talent acquisition efforts to distant candidates. The best recruiters will use the opportunity to gain new skills, make necessary adjustments, and demonstrate their value to the firm.
Businesses will need to immediately re-equip themselves after COVID has been controlled and life can return to normal; according to some experts, “If everything goes well, it’s possible that in 2022, more people will re-enter the workforce; as compared to any previous year.”
Your organization needs to be fully equipped for this upcoming challenge. There are several strategies that one can employ in their hiring process:
Outsourcing Technical Interviews
Companies focusing on attracting worldwide quality IT talent are shifting more and more towards this method to ensure that incoming candidates have all the necessary skills. Outsourcing interviews also create another significant advantage over the current process.
Currently, most of the interviews for technical positions are taken by teams that will work with the incoming staff, which creates a bias and hampers diversity. On the other hand, if the interviewer is neutral, they will only focus on quality and knowledge instead of who will be fun to work with; this also helps in reducing the lead time for any interviews of top technical professionals.
The current scenario sees recruiters waiting a week to schedule interviews with internal IT consultants and delaying prospect feedback. This leads your best candidates to accept another offer before you have all the information you need to make a next-round decision. This also helps reduce hiring costs because you can outsource at much cheaper rates instead of engaging internal staff in the interview process.
Thus, it can be considered as one of the most cost-effective and highly efficient modes of finding the right human resource for the organization.
Virtual Hiring
A hiring procedure that mixes virtual and in-person processes will become increasingly regular due to the related cost and time savings, just as a hybrid workforce of onsite and remote employees will become more common.
According to the Human Resource records, the majority of the job interviews are now being conducted virtually, and the reason is apparent. Virtual recruiting has earned a place in nearly every industry’s ongoing talent acquisition strategies. And undeniably, it will continue to be used by employers alongside traditional in-person recruiting and interviewing once it is safe to meet with candidates face to face.
Other than that, it can be considered one of the most time-efficient hiring modes, making it a preferred choice for both parties.
Internal Hiring
Some experts anticipate that firms will increase their staff through internal mobility programmes related to upskill initiatives or involve flexible expertise instead of hiring outside. Greater employee engagement, reduced costs, and a faster hiring process are just a few of the advantages of internal mobility.
In addition, experts anticipate growth of the talent marketplace will accelerate in the upcoming years as the pandemic intensifies the focus on internal mobility.
Remote Work & Diverse Workforce
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has wreaked havoc worldwide, millions of employees have found themselves in distant work positions. Because of the rapid change in the workplace, a debate concerning the practicality of remote employment has erupted. Companies must change as rapidly as employees realize.
Some businesses will go completely remote, while others will provide part-time remote options. You can decide where you want to fall on the spectrum, but keep in mind that a lack of flexibility will certainly result in a shrinking pool of applicants.
Companies should adapt themselves according to the changing landscape and be as inclusive as possible. Diversity hiring is more than just an HR trend; it’s an intelligent way to do business and set your company up for success.
It is evident that a diverse team is always more innovative and has a higher level of employee engagement, among other things.
Social Media Recruiting
Employers have realized that many working-age people spend a significant amount of time on social media sites, especially the millennials and Gen Z individuals. Organizations should develop a presence on social media sites to reinforce their brand image, demonstrate their corporate culture, and, ultimately, entice people to apply for jobs.
HR leaders see such strategies as a method to attract both active and passive job prospects more effectively and efficiently. Active candidates are actively seeking new employment, but on the contrary, passive candidates are open to examining opportunities.
Understanding the Challenges
“As soon as COVID-19 erupted in March 2020, recruiters’ appetite for learning skyrocketed, more than doubling their regular learning consumption in the months that followed.”
Learning how to be better talent consultants is always a popular topic among recruiters. Still, many more did so for the first time when their hiring managers hastily reached out to them with a tremendous demand for information about the changing labor market. It was time to take a step back, audit procedures, and determine what had worked and hadn’t worked in the past, and how the future would change.
Let’s embrace the changing talent dynamics
Finding the right and ideal personnel is not as easy as it sounds. It requires a lot of taxing time and brainstorming to find the right fit for the vacant positions in the organization. Although, when you are sitting on the hiring desk, you would not like to compromise with the quality, making the onboarding task more challenging. Well, fret not. These strategies will come in really handy to match the best talent with your organization.