Leveraging Technology to Hire the Right Talent in Today’s Crisis

Adrian Dixon

April 29, 2020

In today’s hyper-competitive labor market, the challenge of hiring and retaining the right talent keeps getting tougher by the day.

use technology to hire the right talent

While high employee turnover leaves a bigger dent, an aging population could soon make the talent gap become larger. This spells an urgent need for better ways to attract and retain top talent. As the current recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to grip economies around the world, almost all industries have felt the pinch under the lockdown. The recession has not only a huge impact on the workforce but also the recruitment process.

Although many organizations have put their hiring process on hold until the economic downturns are over, some are still recruiting to prevent a business slowdown. Of course, the pressure facing talent acquisition professionals could be increased even further. But thanks to technology recruiters can give themselves the edge they require in the hunt for talent.

Here are some interesting ways in which technology is helping recruiters hire the right candidate today:

Mobile Recruiting

Mobile recruiting is one of the ways in which technology has simplified the ambiguous task surrounding the hiring process. Performing hiring activities via smartphones makes the process smoother. With a reliable and effective mobile recruiting app, your hiring team could handle many recruitment tasks within a short period of time. And in fact, even if members of the hiring team aren’t present in the same location, they can work together from their various locations using their smartphones. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 28% of US citizens use their phones in their job search, and half of them use their phones to fill out job applications. Said survey was published five years ago, imagine the drastic spike these stats have seen ever since!

To hire the right talent considering the increasing number of job applicants via mobile, it’s wise that company recruiters optimize their career pages —they must ensure that it’s kept simple and mobile-responsive to ease navigation especially the form-filling section. This makes elements of the hiring process much easily accessible from any device to attract diverse talent.  

Faster Screening

For HR professionals, going through job applications is the most time-consuming part of the screening process. However, the adoption of technology can speed up the whole process.  For instance, Hilton Worldwide, GE, and IBM are among the increasing number of organizations using this technology to screen, test, and hire new talent. These companies scan candidates, social media posts, work samples, and analyze their faces using AI technology. 

Other companies like S&P Data leverage AI-powered screening and matching tools to improve the top of their recruitment funnel. Using Ideal S&P Data solved for candidate experience, recruiter inefficiencies, and employee retention. In the words of Sara Benincasa, Vice President of Human Resources: “Prior to using Ideal, we had a 20% contact rate. Switching to the chatbot, we now have an 84% contact rate. More so, by implementing Ideal, we have increased our retention by 20%. In addition, our new hires are outperforming some of our tenured associates on the floor, indicating that we are now hiring the right profiles for success.”

Chat-based digital platforms such as automated chatbots, interactive video Q&A sessions, and live group chats have the potential to significantly improve not only the ratio of successful hires for firms but also the candidate experience. Nowadays, these chatbots can answer all questions a candidate would normally ask and serve them all the information they require to apply for a particular role.

Ability to Hire Remote Experts 

The option to work remotely is an important benefit in the eyes of several candidates. Many companies with office-based staff are experiencing a critical challenge, as their employees no longer go to work. While an abrupt transition to embrace full-time remote work could be challenging for organizations, this situation may be highly beneficial when they are recruiting. 

HR as a whole may not have the expertise required to hire remote workers as it is quite new to the space. But technology can help to identify parameters and traits required for a particular type of remote worker. It can look through a candidate’s previous job history and work samples to determine if the individual is fit for the remote position offered by the company.

Virtual Interviews

As in several other industries, technology is becoming an important tool that offers a solution for firms with increasing recruitment needs. Measures aimed at containing the COVID-19 outbreak, like work from home policies and social distancing, have required organizations to become creative with their recruitment processes, and many are turning to virtual methods like video conference calls.

Tech giants Facebook, Amazon, and Google, as well as recruiters Robert Walters and PageGroup, are among the global firms to announce a shift towards online job interviews for the duration of the crisis. The use of video conferencing apps like Slack, Zoom, and WeChat have increased almost five times since the beginning of the year. 

But this move is not extraordinary. Besides the general increase in video interviews over recent years, previous periods of social and economic hardship have prompted an increase in remote hiring, an example is the 2008 global financial crisis.

However, the current crisis does mark a new era for interviewers and interviewees, as those who are used to face-to-face interviews will have to move to virtual screening processes and find out new ways to best express themselves and their companies online.

Pre-Onboarding Engagement

The pre-boarding period varies by company but provides the hired person with the necessary information and training before he or she actually joins the company to be successful in their new roles. These days, many recruiters treat onboarding as a vital strategic function – not simply a day for filling out forms and sitting through orientation. Technology performs important functions beyond paperwork and team introduction. HR professionals don’t have to wait until the first day of work to begin welcoming new employees.

Technology apps are useful for introducing new hires to the organization’s culture, set their first-year goals, schedule their first-day agenda, and clarify their responsibilities.

It can keep ready-to-start workers warm by sending them alerts to notify them of new content made available to them or emails with invites to further online Q&A sessions.