Q&A with Occupop; The future of recruitment and hiring
Remote working practices have completely disrupted the way we now hire new members of staff. This presents a great opportunity for organisations to revolutionise the way they recruit and digitise the hiring process with ease.
That’s why we’ve teamed up with Occupop to understand some of the ways that organisations can continue to hire the right talent. We caught up with their CEO, Caroline Gleeson, to discuss some of the emerging trends in recruitment.
What have been some of the emerging trends for recruitment over the last few years?
How companies approach the candidate experience is really the biggest change of the last few years. Where previously it was a company-driven market it has now shifted to a candidate-driven market.
This is, in part, due to the rise of candidate review sites like Glassdoor and Indeed but mainly it’s due to the quality of living and how work has started to align more with lifestyle choices, for example, there is a much greater emphasis on candidates’ wanting to associate themselves with a company that have similar values to themselves or organisations that are big on corporate social responsibility.
This shift has meant that if companies want to attract top talent they need to make the process a lot more candidate-centric. That can be achieved through recruitment marketing, employer branding, automation and adoption of candidate tracking technologies to ease the recruitment process and make a more seamless experience for employers and candidates alike.
How has the outbreak impacted recruitment for the short term?
Recruitment during a time of pandemic has led to a significant upheaval in the interview and onboarding process, leading to the need for a remote recruiting process. Companies must ensure they can fill positions for their business without risking health and safety.
This challenge has given rise to new technologies to facilitate the recruitment process completely online. Cloud-based applicant tracking systems like Occupop, for example, enable a complete end to end hiring experience online.
Video interviewing tools and psychometric testing are also increasing in popularity as they aid the interview and assessment process in a fully remote environment.
One interesting trend we did notice from our data was that in Q1 the average number of CVs per job was 53, Q2 the average number of CVs per job went up to 74.
This 29% increase in CVs since the outbreak started is not surprising due to the increase in candidates on the market but it means the process of reviewing and managing candidates becomes more time-intensive for companies, particularly when the entire hiring team is working remotely.
This calls for the ability to screen candidates effectively and collaborate easily. This can be achieved with application features such as AI CV scoring and interview scorecards. If you’re interested in these features, you can read about them here.
HR teams have been forced to embrace the future of work now, digitising the recruitment process and becoming paperless. It was long overdue and will stand to HR teams greatly as they will be able to work more efficiently and, from an environment and GDPR standpoint, it also has a lot of pros!
What are some of the main challenges businesses face when recruiting?
It’s industry dependent and role-specific. We’ve noticed, for example, that retail and logistics companies get a high volume of applicants but can struggle with quality. While some nursing home clients report struggling with interview no-shows and retention as healthcare professionals are very in-demand positions.
Generally speaking, however, it seems that candidate communication, CV shortlisting and collaboration with hiring teams are challenges across the board i.e. anything time-intensive.
How can businesses overcome some of these challenges?
I think what many people forget is that within an HR department there are many responsibilities and functions that must be performed, recruitment is just one facet of a much larger and complex structure. What we often see through our consultations with clients is that basic administrative tasks are taking up entire days; which ultimately can take away from the more important areas of the business.
I think it’s key that HR teams look at their current processes and try to identify where time is being most consumed. I would recommend embracing technology to facilitate automating a lot of the administration and taking advantage of tools that can assist in some of the more time-consuming aspects of the hiring process.
It’s also really important that HR teams consider the potential gaps in their process. Any decent and modern application should have an open API, this means you can plug one system into the other. This enables a streamlined approach where you can basically send your hired candidate from your recruiting tool to your onboarding tool effortlessly.
With the hiring process now entirely remote, how can businesses get a real feel for candidates?
There is nothing to stop companies from hiring remotely and really effectively. Consider adding in additional and new ways to assess someone. We have just added psychometric testing to our interview process and have found it so helpful to see how candidates will fit within the role and organisation as a whole.
It’s a great idea to carry out the testing within your organisation first and you can then get a sense of what you’re looking for and who will work well. It’s also great to see the soft and hard skills that can be quite hard to assess in both in-person or remote hiring.
Interviewee: Caroline Gleeson, CEO of Occupop. Connect here.
About Occupop: Occupop is a powerful hiring tool that connects people, creating strong teams and builds long-lasting relationships. Our dynamic features puts the power in your hands, allowing you to easily engage with the best candidates and manage the entire process on one smart recruitment solution.
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