Collaborative Kindness and 10 Other Things Recruiting Teams Can Do Today

So many people, so fast. After four months of COVID-19 impact in the U.S., over 149,000 people have lost their lives and nearly 37 million their livelihoods.

Even if nearly 80% of currently unemployed Americans are temporary layoffs, or furloughs. But that’s no guarantee those companies will survive and be able to hire all of those people back. 

According to our latest ongoing research of the impact on recruiting and hiring, only 21% of employers still say their hiring hasn’t changed or they’re actually increasing hiring (as of May 15), a decrease of 19% since early April. Of course that changes daily, so we’ll have to see where it goes.

Thirty-two percent of employers said they were redeploying displaced employees – for example, healthcare organizations redeploying nurses to manage employee and patient/family screening stations instead of laying off, furloughing and/or forcing PTO. And 79% were planning for at-risk employees who can’t return to work. And 63% of employers have or are planning for post-coronavirus recruiting and hiring, whatever the heck that looks like with the fits-and-starts stages we’re definitely going to experience in the next 6+ months. Lots of scenario planning happening here.

Collaborative Kindness

Compassion, empathy and kindness: those are all qualities we all need to have more of today and in the months and years to come. Employers are already receiving spikes in job applications, and so many of those individuals will most likely not be qualified. Fact is, qualified or not, we’re all perpetual job candidates longing for meaningful and rewarding work, work that helps provide shelter, sustenance and safety. And sadly, so many more of us are breaking under the weight of today. Please be kind to each other and help where you can. There have also been many collaborative efforts to get people back to work, including helping laid off recruiters find recruiting jobs at Recruiters Recruiting Recruiters and helping many other job types listed here.

What You Can and Should Do Now

In addition to all the collaborative efforts of kindness helping others find work, this is an opportunity to take a look at and improve all the recruiting and hiring things at your own company, especially if you’ve reduced hiring or frozen hiring all together. Here are 10 things to consider doing to prepare for hiring to come: 

1. Review all recruiting processes from pre-application to onboarding – how do they impact candidate, recruiter and hiring manager experiences and what resources (people and technologies) are needed to power them today and tomorrow (and make a wishlist of improvements to make – think virtual interviewing and onboarding that’s here to stay)
   
   
2. Review and update all candidate communications – from autoresponders to recruiting and hiring manager emails, texts and phone scripts
   
   
3. Review and update your job descriptions and templates – ensure they’re accurate, concise and compelling
   
   
4. Apply for your own jobs and make user experience improvements as well as improving self-selection opportunities – meaning, with the increase in applications today, encouraging those not qualified to not apply when possible
   
   
5. Review your direct and indirect competitor career sites, job descriptions, employer brand, social media presence, and more to improve your competitive advantage today and tomorrow
   
   
6. Conduct brief interviews with your recruiters and hiring managers asking them what your recruiting and hiring strengths and weaknesses are
   
   
7. Review available employer review sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, Fairygodboss and others and comparing your ratings versus direct and indirect competitors 
   
   
8. Review your own continuous candidate and employee experience feedback (if you capture it) to identify what your recruiting and hiring strengths and weaknesses are
   
   
9. Participate in our 2020 candidate experience benchmark research program to receive even more insight into recruiting and hiring strengths and weaknesses and being able to compare against other companies big and small across industries
   
   
10. Review best practices of companies with the highest positive candidate experience ratings – the CandE Award Winners!

CandE Best Practices

Speaking of best practices, here are three related to candidate communication and feedback during pre-application, the application process, and screening and interviewing. This is from our 2019 North American benchmark research (all regions are free to download), and all are key differentiators year after year:

1. Candidates for CandE-winning companies had a 42% higher NPS for the likelihood to increase their relationship with the employer when asked for feedback pre-application compared with all other participating companies. CandE winners are also utilizing chatbots on their career sites 10% more often compared with all participating companies and using chat rooms to communicate with potential candidates 21% more often compared with all participating companies.
   
   
2. Candidates for CandE-winning employers have a 40% higher NPS for the likelihood to increase their relationship with the employer when asked for feedback about the application process compared with all other participating companies. CandE-winning companies also include a thank you note 8% more often, tell candidates how to learn about their application status 11% more often, and let candidates know how they can check on their application status 11% more often.
   
   
3. Candidates for CandE-winning employers had a 17% higher NPS for the likelihood to increase their relationship with the employer when asked for feedback after the interview process compared with all other participating companies. While 27% of candidates from all participating employers received general and specific feedback about the interview process when rejected, 31% of candidates for CandE-winning employers received feedback, a 14% difference. And candidates for CandE- winning employers were asked for feedback 7% more often at the end of the interview process, resulting in a 168% increase in a great candidate experience and willingness to increase the relationship.

Based on Talent Board’s research and long-time mission of elevating and promoting a quality candidate experience, the following are all key competitive differentiators year after year:

• Consistent communication from pre-application to onboarding
• Setting better expectations about the recruiting process
• Asking for feedback and provide feedback more often
• Holding your organization more accountable
• Having a higher level of perceived candidate fairness

Participate in the 2020 CandE Benchmark Research

Employers must keep communication open with all their candidates, external as well as your internal employees, as it is more critical than ever. Letting them know that, even if hiring is slowing for your organization, you still want to do a better job at recruiting and hiring, which we know you all do. This can help with your overall perceived fairness and brand perception in the near term and the long term.

Plus, understanding your candidate experience strengths, weaknesses and perception gaps will help you better understand and ultimately make improvements to your processes that will benefit you today and, in the future, once we’re beyond this healthcare crisis. Thank you Survale for powering our survey research!

Even in these uncertain times, candidate experience is more important than ever. And since there are many industries and employer still hiring essential workers, and there is some economic awakening on the horizon, Talent Board’s 2020 CandE Benchmark Research Program will be extended through September 30 (the current deadline is August 31).