by: Kimberly Kenner
Changing Your Recruiting Mindset – Client Success Stories
As the world changes around us, I would like to remind you and me not to lose sight of our goals. Let’s use this time as a gift: use it to invest in yourself and your company’s future. Use it to become better and stronger and ready to face the influx of business that will come your way. I was reminded by this while listening to Tony Robbins. Why not reset and change our mindset?
I would suggest that instead of “While things are slow, let’s not worry about hiring right now,” to “wow, this is a big opportunity to assess what we have to offer our future employees, as well as what our current team means to us. How can I add value to them? How can I add value to my future customers?”
How does this relate to recruiting? The candidate and job marketplace is a challenging one. It impacts companies that had to scale back on hiring now but will need to quickly scale future efforts for open positions when things pick back up, and it even impacts those that never shut down. No matter how competitive or non-competitive your industry’s need for talent is right now, I would suggest we begin to increase candidate touchpoints and change what they look like in preparation for an increase in hiring efforts. This means building out candidate pipelines for the longer term. Yes, even now.
Now is a great time to reach out to candidates, especially in areas or positions that you expect to have an increased need for in the coming months and even next year. Use this time to start building trust and relationships by focusing on your strategic workforce planning for the long term. When developing strategies, campaigns, and the candidate journey in the post-COVID marketplace, you’ll want to begin with a review of what you have in place now. Consider your career site job postings or content marketing – and what you can add to the journey, content marketing via newsletter or social media, and targeted advertising in your trade journals. What are you sharing with this audience?
Ask yourself the following:
- How will the positions we have filled in the past change?
- What are we offering, or what can we offer that we did not before? Perhaps the ability to work from home occasionally or even full time? Can you onboard new employees electronically? Should you consider extra time off to care for their kids who may have to school this fall by distance learning, or even a modified schedule.
- What are we doing to make employees feel and be safe and stay healthy at work?
- Can we execute the entire recruiting and interviewing process virtually?
- Has anything changed about our culture?
Here is another huge mindset change. Instead of “We can’t hire right now, we are too slow, or most of the staff are working from home, or we can live with what we have and deal with this later” to, “You know what? While things are slow, what a great time to hire and onboard a new hire. New employees will benefit from getting to know the company and processes more deeply while things are slow. Or what a great time to find people while they are home after a layoff, or have quiet time while working from home?”
Here are three actual recent examples of our clients that changed their mindset from woe is me to let us be proactive:
Client #1
Our client had a very niche, industry-specific role to fill and the extra time the C19 environment provided worked in both our favor. Yes, they needed to fill the position but didn’t quite have the budget, and the candidate needed to come from their industry, as they would be leading their sales and marketing efforts to a whole new audience. We informed the candidates the process would take a while (as the business was shut down for a least a month). We made sure they were aware of the timing, and all the interviews were conducted via the web. The Ethos team did a round of interviews, and our client did one big group interview, and a follow up interview by telephone. An offer was made and since the company had extra time to think about the candidate and the position, they determined that the role and offer should be upgraded. You see, the person the candidate would report had decided that it was time to retire during this process. She would step down and let him take over and help him get up to speed. Can he travel yet? No. But guess what? He will have optimal training time at the manufacturing plant, will learn all the processes and the capabilities, and as soon a business opens back up, he can hit the ground running. The months usually required for learning and onboarding are taking place now, so the company is ready to take advantage when business picks up momentum. They are far ahead of the game!
Client #2
The recruiting process started before the C19 shutdown, and we were in final interviews ready to make a job offer, and literally, two days later, CA imposed a shutdown. The candidate and client were worried about the future, and we negotiated a temporary solution. The candidate worked for the company virtually a few hours a week, took the time to learn the computer system, and would officially start onsite in four weeks. During this time, when more information about the virus spread was communicated, the candidate has another concern, caring for a family member for one-two months. At the same time, the company decided to halt the business for a few months because their customer base had cut orders. After a candid conversation with the company and the candidate, we negotiated the candidate’s start date to accommodate her family responsibilities. The candidate is elated, and so is our client because they are not losing out on the right candidate for this position.
Client #3
We were hired right before the C19 shutdown to fill several positions. The thought of “uh oh,” now we have to put the search on hold during this time, was alleviated because the company thought this is the perfect time to recruit. The company is a distributor for a manufacturing company and knew their competition would also be working from home. We all concluded this is the perfect time to find potential candidates from the competition during our discussions. Potential candidates would have the ability to speak freely since they were working from home. Our team was ready to recruit and interview virtually. As of today, we have made two offers to candidates after phone and virtual interviews.
Why not change your mindset too? Why not take advantage of this time and figure out whether you can change your message to future candidates or even customers, or how you can find the talent you are after and use this downtime to be ready to face the competition when your business picks back up? Ask us how we can help you build your strategy.
by:
Kimberly Kenner
