How to hire during a pandemic? employer edition
Table of Contents
COVID-19 has obviously affected our lives drastically and changed the way we do life tasks: from our small daily routine of buying groceries from the nearest shop to huge business decisions like working from home instead of office.
It impacted companies of all sizes across all industries that had to change their strategy, functioning, and even hiring processes!
This blog is all about hiring in a pandemic like a pro! how is it done? and what are the best practices to ensure it smoothly and efficiently?
How to hire in a pandemic?
Oh yeah just like you heard it! While many businesses are shutting down causing 195 million job losses around the globe, other businesses in the tech industry and healthcare services are expanding their teams, opening positions, and hiring in the middle of a crisis!
Covid 19 didn’t stop companies on hiring mode from finding new efficient ways to recruit that can both ensure figuring out how to hire good fit candidates and providing them with the necessary incubation and welcoming experience for a successful joining.
Hiring remotely? Is it feasible?
Remote recruitment is a very possible method that makes HR teams probably live their worst nightmare: A recruitment process with
- NO interviews in suits and ties!
- NO handshakes!
- NO office tours!
- NO sweet incubation phase!
- and NO contract signing celebration!
Hiring in a pandemic situation is just an exceptional process!
Hiring remotely is a tough challenge especially for important positions like a project manager or department head that require very special skills. The question is :
- How to know if the candidate is suitable over video?
- How to ensure his smooth inclusion virtually while his teammates know each other face to face and made their way to adapt to teamwork from home?
- How to ensure he gets full knowledge about his work when he never met people from the same department in real life?
- In case it is a leading position how will he lead a team if he never got to know?
- How to get this person to fit in his team and feel comfortable when back to the office?
“We have no other option but to rely on the one-to-one video conferences or phone calls to interview candidates for all roles at IndiaNIC, we don’t offer jobs we offer careers so we need to make our recruitment as efficient as possible”
N.PODRA HR head of IndiaNIC LTD software development company
“It’s definitely not the full experience, at work we area family and we had many wonderful times that probably a remote recruit will be deprived of such experience…, but we are trying our best, our team never stopped growing and will never even with the pandemic we still have many vacancies and we are ready to offer them to the right people”
S. mundra CEO of IndiaNIC
Are we supposed to change interview questions from regular ones?
Our answer to this is definitely YES! Though The last decade experienced a total change in recruitment questions from just focusing on technical abilities to actually paying attention to the very important soft/non-technical skills of the candidate. Yet, the pandemic crisis situation is again requiring drastic changes in the typical interview questions. We suggest paying attention to the following details
- Stress management abilities: The world is going through an unusual amount of stress that is unbearable for some people. It is very important to test if the candidate is coping well and is mentally ready to take do work.
- Financial stability is the candidate just looking for better offers or did he lose his job and really looking for a chance to dedicate himself and show his capacities
- Daily routine you might think that it is none of the company’s business to ask personal questions but in the current situation and long lockdowns, open-ended questions “how was your day?”, “ are working out?”,” did you use lockdown to learn new things?” Help to settle a more comfortable, relaxed, friendly mood during the interview and can reveal a lot about the candidate state of mind, how self-directed is he as a person, how flexible and active he is and other helpful qualities that serve the company well in his a work from home situation
- And other important details before moving to the technical questions.
Succeeding onboarding after recruitment
Recruiting isn’t just about interviews and CVs, the most challenging part is the onboarding phase that tests the efficiency. In a pandemic case, the candidate won’t have a normal experience being hired remotely will deprive him of experimenting bonding with a team emotionally before functionally.
Most companies like ours who previously found efficiency in the post-recruitment process by setting a family fun environment in the office from pool tables, Friday events, trips, team dinners, etc will need to do some significant revision.
“ It is our duty to always transmit our company’s culture, mission, and career development goals to the new team members and provide them the best welcoming experience regardless of the global situation”
N.Podra HR head of indiaNIC
Conclusion
Remote hiring is the right solution! It won’t stop businesses from conveying their internal culture, share great videos, and enjoy a decent team experience all without stepping foot in office. Only companies with a great culture worth sharing made to survive the best possible way.
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