The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global economy in many ways. Only time will tell what the virus’ reach, impact, and fallout in total are. However, a measurable aspect of COVID-19 is job loss, and it continues to fluctuate each day. How should you adjust your recruitment process to adapt?
Estimates show that the pandemic forced the US economy shed 22.2 million jobs in March and April. Around 10 million people in the United States are looking for jobs on the direct behalf of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This has created a massive uptick to job application form submissions. This means that any company’s recruitment process has been challenged and likely forced to alter among the wave of applicants.
So what can companies do when they see a surge or increase in job submissions? How do they find the needles (the best candidates) as they haystack (number of applicants) only gets bigger and bigger? Read on to find out.
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Your Recruitment Process: How Technology Can Help
Accurate and Well-Optimized Job Posts
In a job market saturated with newly unemployed jobseekers, it’s beneficial to all parties to make sure applicants and recruiting teams are not wasting time in the wrong places.
Poorly-optimized online job posts may be too generalized, attracting a wealth of candidates that are not qualified for an open role. Incorrect or misleading job descriptions may be giving false hope to applicants who are overreaching. This can lead to disappointment for all parties involved.
Not to mention jobs that don’t include Google for Jobs’ ranking signals are just less likely to be seen. So those who could be the most qualified candidates may never come across the job in the first place.
Google for Jobs allows recruiting teams to appropriately align job data and job descriptions to match what the appropriate/well-suited candidates would be searching for in online job descriptions.
By tailoring job descriptions to include specific keywords and industry-specific language, prospects gain visibility to the online posts that are the most relevant/attractive to them. Teams that are unable to tackle this on their own should seriously consider finding a third party who can.
Unique (and Discrete) Landing Pages and Forms
Building qualifying features right into the top of your candidate pipeline funnel is an effective and time-saving effort for recruitment teams.
Automation and AI can siphon large numbers of applicants into specific buckets as they go through the hiring process. Before any automation or algorithm categorizes applicants, discrete landing pages can direct desirable candidates in front of recruiters immediately.
For instance: if a business is looking to hire web developers who exclusively code in python, they can target recently laid-off employees from other businesses with emails linking to landing pages and unique job application forms. These landing pages are built specifically to attract and qualify candidates simultaneously.
Automated Videos
If you have to comb through reams of candidates, one way to get through a first round of interviews and tighten up your recruitment processes is by setting up an automated one-way video screening process. This can save talent acquisition teams hours.
Instead of having a 15 or 20 minute phone screen to determine if someone has at least the basics, or is a right cultural fit, watching a 2 to 3 minute video can cut to the chase.
Resumes can be deceiving sometimes and it’s not uncommon for recruiters to get stuck on a call with someone who might have the right credentials on paper but unfortunately, is not the right fit. Videos can help save time.
Refining Your Pipeline in the Recruitment Process
When the job market is jobseeker-heavy, it means your business can ease back on recruitment advertising practices and spend more time on refining the candidate pipeline available to you.
By setting up sophisticated workflows that accurately categorize your applicant pool, you will save your recruitment teams TONS of time.
It may feel counterintuitive to some, but there’s a fine balance to maintain between a healthy flow of candidates and an unhealthy supply of candidates.
Employer branding and brand reputation do come into discussion in regards to how well recruitment teams follow-up with eager candidates. Regardless of whether a candidate is appropriate or not for the position, their experience during the screening process is the first interaction they have with the company.
If hopeful applicants feel disrespected, unappreciated, or short-handed during the screening process it can lead to poor word-of-mouth, and hurt the business’ prospect funnel when the market is not so saturated with talent.
Automating communications between applicants and businesses helps save lots of time on back and forth correspondence, and it gives applicants an up-to-date understanding of where they stand in the process.
Share Your Workload
If you happen to face a huge wave of candidates for some reason — whether that’s a seasonal shift or as we’re seeing during COVID, a larger economic one — you may be able to devote resources from elsewhere within your company to help carry the load.
For example, if your company was affected by layoffs in the spring, you could have HR reps who are no longer fielding employee calls related to benefits, retirement, etc. They could be a perfect fit to help screen candidates who are now applying for your company as you may have open roles. Hiring managers can step in and take a more active role as well.
Refining that assembly line will be key to ensuring that your recruitment processes are able to keep up with demand.
The Right Systems in Place For Any Job Market
Although the market is competitive among applicants today, it may not be that way in the future, and it’s wise to set your business up for successful recruitment, regardless of market saturation.
By efficiently screening applicants through funnels designed to handle high and low applicant intake volumes, and adapting your recruitment processes to meet the needs of the moment, your company stands a better chance of hiring the right people.
To learn more about healthy job candidate flow and Google for Jobs, please contact us.
