Are There More Innovative and Interactive Ways Clients Should Recruit in Order to Sell Their Organisations?

There have always been stages of the recruitment process that are done remotely. From psychometric testing to phone interviews and digital vetting, it is relatively uncommon that every stage of recruiting and onboarding a new employee takes place in person.

The events of the past two years and the current state of recruitment mean that almost all recruitment stages are now taking place virtually, whether over the phone or on a video call. Whilst there are benefits to this method of screening and assessing potential employees, it also means that candidates miss out on getting a proper understanding of a workplace, its staff and the job experience on offer, which is having an impact on hiring success.

In a recruitment market where many candidates are no longer given the opportunity to get a feel for a business before they are offered a job, clients should question whether they are selling themselves and their opportunities well enough when conducting interviews virtually. And if not, what could be done differently to overcome this?

Remote Recruitment: Benefits and Drawbacks

There was once a time when candidate pools were much smaller simply because the ability to travel to and from a workplace in a day was a necessity for many jobs. But now remote working is the norm, which means that many companies are hiring new staff from a wide range of locations and conducting their recruitment processes entirely online.

The Benefits of Remote Recruitment

• Hiring candidates from a wider range of locations means that your talent pool is larger, increasing the number of talented applicants you get for your roles
• Offering remote recruitment and remote working options makes you more appealing as an employer, which also means that more candidates are likely to apply for your roles
• Recruiting from a wider geographic area often means that companies end up with a more diverse workforce, which has been proven to have multiple benefits in terms of business growth, success and innovation
• If you’re not having to arrange in-person interviews with candidates then the recruitment process is often faster and more efficient, which helps to improve candidate engagement

The Drawbacks of Remote Recruitment

• It can be harder to get a proper feel for a candidate when only speaking to them virtually, which can make interviews more difficult
• A candidate may not be able to get a proper feel for your company during a virtual interview, which could lead to them declining a job offer
• Technical issues can interrupt virtual interviews and make the process more stressful and time-consuming
• You may exclude potential candidates who may not have the right equipment to take part in virtual interviews
• In-person interviews often give candidates the chance to speak to other employees and see the space they would be working in, which helps to give everyone involved a better idea of whether they’re a good fit for the company
• Promoting company benefits and culture can be much more effective when candidates can see this for themselves when visiting a workplace

The Importance of Promoting Workplace Experience and Company Culture 

Whilst not everyone will get a ‘feeling’ when they visit a potential workplace and start to really want to work there, conducting interviews in person was one of the best ways of showing job applicants what they could expect from a role and demonstrating the reality of company culture, as well as offering the opportunity to speak to current employees about their experiences. If you’re hosting job interviews remotely then you need to prioritise other ways of demonstrating workplace experience and company culture so that potential employees still get a good idea of what working for you would be like.

It’s not just the role, requirements and daily responsibilities that will sway an applicant’s decision to accept a role, but also the work environment, company benefits and business values. A recent study from Glassdoor found that 77% of candidates consider a company’s culture before applying for a role, and if yours is lacking then you risk losing a huge portion of potential applicants.

In today’s recruitment industry, it’s also not enough to simply advertise your jobs and hope that the right candidates take notice. Competition is fiercer than ever, and if you’re not promoting every facet of your company and offering a competitive employment experience, your hiring efforts won’t be successful.

How to Promote Your Workplace in Your Recruitment Process

When you can’t sell your workplace and culture during in-person interviews, it’s important to find other innovative and interactive ways to give potential employees the chance to get a feel for your business and also advertise what makes you unique.

Discuss Benefits in your Job Advert

Job advertisements are often the first place that a candidate reads about an opportunity and therefore is your best chance to make a strong impression from the getgo and stick in your candidates’ minds as a great potential employer. And yet, there are so many instances where organisations write bland job adverts that share absolutely no insight about what working for a company is like and instead only give basic information about role responsibilities and requirements.

Instead of focusing on what a job will involve, try and sell the entire experience of working for your business. Ask the reader questions about themselves that will catch their attention and resonate with the kinds of candidates you’re trying to attract, such as ‘Would you like to work for an employer that lets you choose your working hours?’ or ‘Do you want to be part of a team where you have the power to influence company-wide decisions?’.

Be sure to list the benefits that come with being an employee as well as necessary information about what the role will involve. Ensure that you’re using descriptive and engaging language to describe the opportunity, and consider adding links to your careers page or organisation values so that potential applicants can find out more about your employment value proposition.

Use Video to Capture Workplace Experience

Video is an incredibly engaging format and can be one of the best methods of capturing workplace experience in a way that is going to really appeal to potential employees. Instead of writing paragraphs of text that try to describe who you are and what you stand for, a video can much more effectively illustrate employee experience and let the viewer get a clear idea of your brand.

You can capture workplace experience and culture in a video in a variety of ways. You could create a montage of different shots of your office, film an introduction or even a tour from a senior member of the team, or interview a range of employees and get them to share their experience of the business. The more human elements you can include in this video the better, as this will help keep the viewer engaged.

Whether you display this video on your careers page or send it to applicants during the recruitment process, this kind of content is incredibly effective at helping potential employees to start imagining themselves in your company and really build their interest in a role.

Make Company Values Clear

Your company values are really important when it comes to attracting talented candidates and ensuring that you hire employees who are a good culture fit for the business. In today’s recruitment climate, many candidates care just as much about the values and mission of the company they work for as they do about the role itself, so if you’re looking for innovative ways to promote your organisation, you should ensure that you’re sharing these values in candidate attraction material.

The first step in making your values clear is to ensure that they’re communicated on your website. Whether a part of your ‘About Us’ page or highlighted in your careers section, it should be easy for an interested person to find out what you stand for and prioritise.

You should also think about the ways you can communicate these values more subtly through other promotional material, such as the content you share on your social media channels, the topics you write about on your blog or the other organisations you interact with.

When it comes to your recruitment process, think about the ways you can share these values with candidates other than just telling them during an interview. Consider sending them content about your organisation between stages of the process to keep them engaged and give them a better idea of what you stand for.

Let Candidates Ask Questions

Interactive recruitment processes are far more engaging, and engaging recruitment leads to a much better candidate experience. This may seem like a simple piece of advice, but allowing your candidates to ask questions and find out more about your business will help to build more of a relationship during the recruitment process and give them a positive and helpful impression of your company.

It’s also a good idea to share the answers to frequently asked questions through content on your blog, website and social media as a way of giving applicants more information about the experience of working with you.

Facilitate Conversations with Current Employees

Finally, if you’re looking for a way to improve an entirely virtual recruitment process, consider offering candidates the chance to speak with current employees. As previously discussed, answering questions is a great way to ensure that applicants feel more engaged and have a better idea of what’s happening during recruitment, which will improve their experience and keep your company in their minds.

Current employees are also your best spokespeople for promoting the company experience, and by giving candidates the chance to speak with them and ask more general questions about workplace culture and personal experience, they’ll get a much more authentic idea of what working for your business is like. This is a much more personal way of promoting your organisation and again helps to build a relationship with applicants, which makes them much more likely to apply for future jobs if they aren’t successful this time around.

Summary

Innovation and engagement are two things that organisations should be prioritising in all areas of their business strategy, not just when it comes to finding new ways to promote their company and attract new candidates. However, when you’re conducting most or all of your recruitment process virtually, it’s very important to consider how you are going to convey aspects of the business that an in-person interview would cover, and ensure that you’re letting potential employees get as much of a feel for you as you are of them.

If you’re a business in the electronics or embedded systems engineering industry looking for a way to improve your hiring strategy, working with a specialist recruiter like KO2 can help. Get in touch to find out more or speak to a member of our team for expert advice.