If your business still has the need, appetite and capacity to continue hiring right now here’s some help and guidance on how you can still make things happen in these unprecedented times.
Obviously, we have a vested interest in keeping the wheels moving on recruitment in what are very tough market conditions for everyone right now.
Job board aggregators such as Indeed and Adzuna are the canaries in the coal mine for the economy, the numbers of permanent vacancies being posted by clients and recruitment firms have fallen dramatically across the world as the majority of companies have cancelled or postponed hiring plans.
IT, engineering, legal, hospitality and manufacturing are among many industries to see a notable decline in March. These are the facts, we are in no way looking to take advantage of the terrible situation people find themselves in. Commercially you are in a very strong position if you continue recruiting right now there are certain things in your favour.
Fewer jobs advertised, less competition for the skills you require:
- With fewer companies recruiting the competition for the best talent is not as fierce as it was 3 weeks ago.
Many industries are in dire straits – the uncertainty will be unsettling staff in these sectors, who are going to start looking around, who otherwise would not. While others may be unfortunately being made redundant.
- We have had software developers apply for permanent jobs this week – this just doesn’t happen. In the past three years, money spent on advertising software vacancies delivers very little in terms of ROI.
What is the solution? Run a virtual recruitment process:
Yes it’s a new way of doing things, yes it’s a bit scary – but it is possible to interview, hire and onboard someone virtually and we can help you.
There are a number of paid and free video conferencing tools which are stable, feature-rich and easy to use.
Some of our favourites are:
- Zoom – Free
- Google Hangouts – Free
- Teams – Paid (but will be part of most commercial O365 packages)
- Skype for Business – Paid
- Interview or Odro – Paid
We advise you to prepare and deliver a virtual or video interview in exactly the same way you would prepare for a face to face meeting.
Let us know and we can set up a Zoom meeting between all your key stakeholders and the Greenfield team to discuss your requirements in detail, also the profile of your ideal candidate in terms of team fit.
The Greenfield team will take that understanding, go to the market and present you with a shortlist as normal:
- Video Interview – We can set up and schedule these meeting on your behalf.
- First Round – 30 minutes Informal discussion around the candidate’s technical skill set, motivations.
- Second Round – 1hr 30minutes – More detailed discussions around the candidate’s technical skills and personality fit, including some form of presentation or live tech test from the candidate.
- Final Round – 1hr Optional final stage probably with members of the senior management team to follow up on any outstanding questions/queries or concerns borne out of the interview process.
Virtual On-boarding of a remote worker:
- HR Process – Contract / Company Handbook.
- Line Manager Process – Have a clear plan for the initial remote scenario – Set clear expectations. What you expect from the employee and what they can expect from you.
- You can courier a laptop to a new employee fully configured with all the essential cloud applications needed and / or connectivity back to the mother ship.
- Management of your remote employee – take some advice from your HR partners, have a plan around how you are going to manage your remote worker, they will need plenty of communication and hand-holding, especially in the early days.
- Greenfield has access to a specialist on-boarding coach who delivers coaching support to new employees to culturally embed, support and enable them to become productive as soon as possible.
How it works:
- The First 60 Working Day Accelerator Programme is a one-on-one coaching plan designed to support new hires to integrate quicker, delivering results faster in the first 3 months of their new role.
- The sessions are conducted virtually at a time to suit your new employee.
Conclusions
If you have the means, authority and the need to hire staff right now. There is tech available to make this happen, you have a partner in Greenfield that has experience of helping make this happen and you have the market conditions stacked in your favour.
For a demo of these virtual interview platforms or further details please get in touch.
