Many B2B companies are seeing sales decline as buyer behavior has changed due to the coronavirus pandemic. While adapting your B2B sales hiring strategy to the new normal of life, you need to set clear hiring objectives. The post-pandemic world will need employees with a different set of skills, such as digital skills, design thinking, entrepreneurship and innovation. So, before you start hiring, set smart recruiting goals. Here are a few recruitment strategies to help you get started:
1. Create a detailed recruitment procedure.
Remote hiring is a different experience from hiring in-person. It is your responsibility to your potential employees and to your company to ensure that you have a recruitment process that works. Spend some time to create a detailed and well-thought-out recruitment procedure.
- Make certain you have a system in place to test your technologies ahead of time and ask the interviewer to do the same.
- Prepare for hiring a new employee remotely in the same way you would hire in person.
- Make a list of candidates, shortlist them and select the ones you want to interview.
- Extend the invitation to the selected candidates for a video interview. Ensure that you explain how the process will be conducted and what the candidate should expect.
- Let them know whether the position is temporarily or permanently remote.
2. Get innovative.
- Approach professional organizations that provide employees on contractual basis. This is also called body shopping or employee leasing.
- Consider offering an employee stock ownership program.
- Consider using apps like Bumble, Snapchat and Spotify for social recruiting.
- Use this time to evaluate the reviews on Glassdoor and use these insights to optimize your methods of recruitment.
- Invest in ATS to streamline your recruitment process, generate reports and get actionable insights to modify your recruitment methods and maximize the conversion rate.
3. Rely on HR technology to manage recruitment.
During this time of uncertainty, technology plays an important role in helping teams, especially HR teams, to manage communications, collaboration and productivity. Use HR technology to:
- Facilitate cross-team communication and functionality
- Keep current employees engaged during a time of social distancing
- Create more personalized experience for both new employees and existing ones
4. Prioritize remote working skills.
When hiring, place a special focus on skills for remote work to make employee transition into your company easier. Some useful skills for remote work are:
- Effective communication
- Organization
- Conscientiousness
- Self-direction
5. Utilize your existing candidate pool.
You may have pools of candidates who may have submitted their applications before the pandemic. Dig into this talent pool because it has several benefits:
- You don’t need to run an active recruiting campaign.
- You may be lucky enough to tap into passive candidates who may be executing their crisis exit strategy.
- You may have the time and space to recruit the right employees who will be aligned with your new initiatives. So, when business resumes its normal activities post-crisis, they will be able to easily adapt to the new environment.
6. Let people know you’re hiring.
Many qualified candidates were probably looking for jobs before the pandemic hit. But now, they may be under the impression that most companies are not hiring during this crisis. Once you make it known that you are open to hiring, they will gravitate towards your company.
- List your current job postings on your company’s website, social media, and other job portals.
- Take help from your current employees to get the word out by leveraging their social media.
7. Continue recruitment efforts using virtual interviewing technology.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the HR teams rely heavily on virtual interviewing technology to maintain recruiting efforts for hiring remote employees. Everything from in-person interviews, conference calls to standard face-to-face meetings have now been shifted onto the online platform. Ensure that:
- You provide the recruiters with all the tools needed to complete a quality interview.
- Your virtual interviewing technology is efficient and enhances the candidate experience.
8. Have a solid virtual onboarding plan.
Remote onboarding is more than just sharing a copy of the digital company handbook. For virtual onboarding to be a success, ensure that you:
- Space out virtual training and exercises and give new hires some free time to absorb the information.
- Take steps to ensure that the company culture is adequately conveyed through virtual onboarding.
Kelly Barcelos is a content marketing manager for Jobsoid, a recruitment software and specializes in HR.
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