Two months ago, you had your recruiting system down to a science. You knew where you needed to go, who you needed to talk to, and what you needed to say.
Then everything changed. And now your system needs to change too, because business doesn’t stop.
How do you connect to candidates in a world where we need to keep our distance? How do you create a personal connection in a digital environment? How do you bring people into your company when it’s on lock down?
Build out a Digital Candidate Experience where social distance meets the cross-sections of technology and strategy. It’s not a secret that we live in a digital world – or that candidates do as well. Providing virtual alternatives to traditionally in-person experiences isn’t just a smart move for the short-term, it’s a high-ROI strategy you can revisit time and time again. Here are some helpful suggestions of plans you can put in place.
Virtual Hiring Events
Hiring Events and Career Fairs are a major source of candidates and hires for employers, but are nearly impossible in this environment…right?
Wrong. Virtual hiring events (and career fairs) are entirely possible, and can even save you time, money, and improve the quality of candidates with whom you’re interacting.
Digitized Candidate Experiences
At least half of your candidate touchpoints are already digital – and converting the rest (as you can) isn’t nearly as difficult as you may imagine.
Explore new techniques – while in-person interviews might not be conceivable, digital skills assessments, 30-second video applications, and chatbots can engage and gauge quickly.
Create virtual onboarding kits – digitize your onboarding experience to help candidates
Build Your Pipelines
This situation has a lot of uncertainty around it – but the fact of the matter is that you will need to hire again. Everyone’s situation right now is different – and frequently, decisions are being made at the C-Suite level. If you’ve put a pause on hiring, now’s the time to build your pipelines.
Generate Talent Brand Awareness
Candidates are likely spending more time surfing social media or the internet in general, and are going to be seeing myriad of content. Why not add content around your talent brand and culture?
Tell stories. Share soft content. Work on your blogs.
Feature your employees (they may have a little extra time on their hands, too!) Or get creative – feature an employee-curated Netflix or Spotify playlist or host a virtual skills competition.
Interactive Pipeline Builders
On the other hand, candidates are going to be seeing a lot of content – while yours should be in the mix, it should also stand out. Interactive content is an easy way to capture candidate engagement. Creating calculators, quizzes, infographics, or even games break through the noise, and pull double-duty when they’re capturing candidate information at the same time.
Remember We’re All In This Together
The Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic is one of the few things that unites us all on a global level – we’re all facing challenges in our everyday life and don’t know what to expect in the long-term.
- Be transparent – no one knows what’s going to happen, but communication helps to cut down on uncertainty.
- Be understanding – candidates may be facing difficult situations – lack of childcare, external stressors, sick family members – remember that hiring is still a human process.
Interested in finding out more?
Brandemix has a specialized Plan C Offering. We will create a custom, branded virtual hiring event landing page for you in as little as 48 hours, and create a strategy to drive quality candidates to your event. Ask about our Right Fit Survey – a tailored candidate persona assessment meant to engage qualified candidates quickly and capture their information.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
