It’s 2021. As an HR professional, you should start spearheading your company’s strategy on remote recruitment. Not because it’s necessary as a result of COVID-19. Not because it’s the latest buzzword or trend. But to stay competitive now and in the future when it comes to the competition for talents.
The pandemic has accelerated the digitization of HR. It was already bound to happen. It just got accelerated recently. One of the HR functions that needed to adapt quickly and urgently is recruitment. In the past years, a lot of companies have steadily incorporated remote recruitment by implementing a hybrid process - the first parts are remote interviews and the later parts are in-office interviews. But now, it’s no longer just a “let’s give it a try” program. It has become a minimum expectation for job seekers - and very much for those who are presently employed.
As an IT recruitment agency in Singapore, we’ve noticed that remote Remote recruitment has become the norm these days and will continue to be in years to come. While traditionally HR recruiters feel that personal, in-office interviews are more effective, technology has made remote interviews similarly situated. But it has its own unique set of challenges. It’s a relatively new concept and a lot of companies have just started to unravel the issues related to remote hiring.
HR Challenges Faced During Remote Interviews
A. Distractions and Disruptions
While in the office, HR recruiters can organize a room that’s conducive to interviews. In remote interviews, there are just a lot of things outside your control. The candidate might be taking your call at home with their kids or a pet. Or in a busy coffee shop and the waiter suddenly appears. Or somewhere where the connection isn’t good.
B. Rapport Building
If you’re not used to it, it is challenging to build rapport if you’re not in the same room as your candidate. It requires a change in mindset and you have to think that the person you’re talking to is right in front of you. If not, there’s a high chance that the interview becomes impersonal and transactional.
C. Unnoticeable Non-Verbal Cues
If you’ve been doing recruitment for a while, you know how important non-verbal cues are to assessing if the candidate is a fit. A change in posture gives you a hint that there might be something to be wary of. But with remote interviews, these may be difficult to detect. More often than not, you only see a quarter of the candidate’s body. Sometimes, just the face even.
D. Tech Challenges
Let’s be honest. Not a lot of HR recruiters are tech-savvy. With the myriad of tools that remote interviews may require, you need to get yourself used to them. But with a lot of things on your table, you may not be able to invest the time to learn these tools.
E. Don’t Wing It
With remote recruitment becoming more and more prevalent, don’t just wing it. As HR recruiters, you need to come up with a strategy to make your process effective, efficient, and competitive. So, how do you make it work?
5 Tips to Overcoming HR Challenges in Singapore
1. Partner With An IT Recruitment Agency
Particularly an agency that has a track record of success and one that cares for your success. Many IT recruitment agencies have sprung up in Singapore and globally in the past decade. You must do your research on trustworthy recruitment agencies that can rely on during times of urgency.
A recruitment agency will help you ease in your transition to a more, if not, fully remote recruitment by taking care of the heavier tasks such as sourcing, coordination, and interviewing. Observe how they do it and take down notes that you can refer to once you decide to take care of the full cycle yourself.
Partnering with an IT recruitment agency is a big step to take. As such, it might seem a little daunting! But you might find these articles helpful:
The Key Benefits of Hiring Through a Trusted Recruitment Agency
3 Misconceptions Employers Have That Prevents Them From Accessing the Right Talent!
2. Review and Streamline Your Hiring Process
If you don’t have the budget to partner with an IT recruitment agency, you and your team can start by reviewing your hiring process and identifying points of friction - these are points in your process that require your candidates to invest a significant amount of time and effort. Once you’re able to identify these points of friction, come up with a plan to simplify them. Simple doesn’t mean crude or lackluster.
Do you have an assessment that usually takes the candidate an hour to finish when doing it in your office? Simplify your assessment or look for a shorter alternative. Do you have a panel interview that lasts an average of 2 hours? Sit down with your panelists and help them structure the way they do their interviews to cut it short to an hour or less. Address the points of friction in your process to minimize, even prevent, candidate fallout.
3. Use The Right Tools
Make sure you’re using the right tools needed to get your job done. Use conference tools that have video functionality. You still need to establish a connection with your candidates even if it’s virtual. One very helpful tip is to find a tool that allows you to record your interviews. By recording your interviews, you don’t have to take down notes in real-time and stay focused on the conversation you have with the candidate.
Active listening is very important in an interview, more so when you’re doing it remotely. With a lot of distractions not just on your end, but also from your candidate’s end, your 100% focus should be on listening. If you’re taking down notes, you may miss out on a very important discussion point.
Looking for more tips on the right tools to use? You might want to check out these articles below:
4. Prep Your Tech In Advance
And make sure you have your plan B or C ready. When you're doing your interviews remotely and are very dependent on technology, make sure you have a contingency plan. Sometimes, these tools crash or outright fail. When that happens, make sure you have a way to reconnect seamlessly to avoid disrupting the flow of the conversation. You don’t want to miss out on a very important topic just because your OS suddenly updated. Or tabs crashed after having opened 100 of them.
Make sure to discuss your contingencies with your candidate at the onset of your interview so they can also prepare themselves in case the dreaded “reboot” happens. Unlike in an office setting where the only tech that will potentially fail is the AC not cooling the place down as needed, there’s just a lot that could go wrong in remote interviews. Be the HR recruiter that’s always prepared.
5. Close Strong And Sell Your Culture
Never forget that on top of being recruiters, you are ambassadors of your company. Never miss out on selling your company culture. This is usually forgotten (perhaps intentionally) or done half-heartedly when doing remote hiring.
Allow yourself 5 to 10 minutes to discuss what they should look forward to if they get hired with your company. Not only will this impress your candidates, but you will leave a memorable mark on them. And I couldn’t stress enough how important it is to leave a mark on your candidates when you’re doing your recruitment remotely. These remote conversations are easy to forget and if you’re vying for that rockstar talent, be memorable.
Wrapping Up
Remote hiring is here to stay. If done correctly, it can be a boon to your company. However, you need to invest time and effort to get it right. You may not get it right the first time, but make sure to iterate and refine based on data and feedback. Get the work done early on and enjoy the benefits later.
We’re always on the lookout for more HR topics and challenges to discuss! Share them with us in the comments section below!
Read More: 4 Recruitment Productivity Tips for Tech Recruiters