The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the dynamics of Recruitment and how people work in India and around the world. Covid has created a lot of challenges in the recruitment process and many more challenges in how organizations hire.
Through 2020 & even in 2021, most of us continue to work remotely, but these changes are mostly temporary, especially as this year is closing out with most of us being Vaccinated. It is assumed that eventually things would return to “normal.”
In the same way that a hybrid workforce of an onsite and remote employees will become more normalized, a hiring process that combines virtual recruitment and in-person processes have become a standard due to the cost & time savings giving rise to online recruitment solutions like Digi Hyre.
These unprecedented times have given rise to a lot of challenges.
Given below are a few challenges that has adversely affect the recruitment market:
1. Brand, Compensation & Benefits – together are major Game changers
Candidates are now cherry picking when it comes to joining an organisation. Compensation being on top is the ultimate motive for any candidate to jump and take a new job. During the 2020 lockdown and pandemic very few employees were given hikes. This has now led to a sentiment in the employees to look for a big hike in salary, greener pastures and better brands that would give them a better career path.
When organisations want to showcase their brand, they need to emphasis to the candidates the following:
- Work culture
- The Leadership Team
- The Company Vision / Mission
- The growth & career pathway for the Employee
- Insights on projects they work on
Benefits that the candidates look for are:
- Comprehensive CTC Structure with Incentives
- ESOP (Employee stock ownership plan)
- Health & Insurance Plans
- Flexible Work hours
- Hybrid or fully remote work Environment
- Access to tools
- Training
All the above with a combination of great Branding would be a game changer.
2. Cumbersome Recruitment Process
With remote working in place, the hiring process too has become virtual and due to this the interview and hiring process has become cumbersome with multiple rounds of interview because of which many candidates drop off during the interviews. “Candidate Engagement” has now become “Candidate Delight”. Companies are coming up with “one day Interviews” to attract talent. It’s still a job seekers Market and companies are trying their best to attract candidates. The more agile the recruitment process, the more efficient it would be in terms of converting interviews to offers to joining.
3. Multi-skilled Candidates in Demand
Multi-skilled employees have several different skills, enabling them to do more than one kind of work. The development of a more adaptable, multi-skilled workforce, capable of moving with the times such as “Full stack Developers” & “process engineers “come with Vertical and Horizontal cross skills which are in much demand. There is a scarcity of such talent in the Market and these few “purple squirrels” come with very high CTC and are very difficult to find. Companies are now looking for this multi skilled candidates.
4. Task Round Omission
Many organizations are very rigid in their interview process and are not adaptable to change. May candidates do not want to take task rounds because the tasks assigned are very lengthy and take away a lot of their time. Hence many candidates drop of when a task is assigned as an interview process. 50% of candidates usually drop off due to lengthy tasks. At Multi Recruit we advise clients to break down the tasks into smaller assignment and have these assignments administered during the online interviews itself. The interviewer gets to test and experience the capabilities of the candidate in real-time by shortening the interview process.
5. “The great Resignation” also known as “the big quit”
It is the season of the “The great Resignation” also known as “the big quit” which is the new ongoing trend of employees voluntarily leaving their jobs in 2021. These high attrition rates indicate the employee’s confidence in their ability to get higher paying jobs, which typically coincides with high economic stability, an abundance of people working, and low unemployment rates. The COVID pandemic has allowed employees to rethink their careers, work conditions, professional long-term goals and work life balance. As many organizations are trying to bring their employees to work form office, employees desired the freedom to work from home given during the pandemic. Additionally, many workers, particularly the younger generation, are seeking a better work–life balance.
6. The Season of Offer Dropouts
Offer Rejection is the new norm. Even the best brands & best paying companies are facing offer rejections. Recruiters are facing a tough time during this season as the market is filled with candidates who are looking for better prospects and have multiple offers and choose the company which pays the most. Recruitment turns out to be a very costly affair every time a candidate drops the offer. The entire recruitment process must be initiated all over again. A significant amount of time and effort is wasted to find a new replacement and may at times projects get delayed and all of this would translate to huge revenue loss.
7. Counteroffer Scenarios
In this candidate driven market, job seekers are getting offers of upto 250% hike on their CTC. Finding a candidate who is perfect for both the role and your company is often challenging but rewarding. When an impressive candidate sends you a counteroffer, respond to them professionally and remind them why your company is a great place to work and how much you can offer them. Learn more about what a counteroffer letter is, types of responses to send and elements to include in your response. Do not make low offers to candidates. You can test the water, but anything too low can be offensive and will put the candidate off (especially if they have high expectations). If the candidate is inclined to accept a counteroffer and you are really in need of the candidate, be prepared to counter the counteroffer by bettering what was offered earlier.
8. DE&I – Diversity, equity & inclusion would have more emphasis in hiring
Diversity, equality & inclusion (DE&I) will be a continuing focus area for recruiters, especially because more candidates will make job choices based on their assessment of a company’s DE&I commitment.
Recruiters need to remove arbitrary entry barriers to job opportunities like educational qualification, they need emphasise more for a diverse pipeline of candidates and hold hiring managers accountable for moving those candidates through the hiring process. This could be through restructuring hiring processes to reduce bias, building diversity friendly interview panels, and having mandates with data-driven reporting against diversity goals.
More companies are looking for tools to help them remove bias in the hiring process and build systems that promote & develop employee equity thru DE&I.
To conclude, we are amid a disruption with a candidate driven market, and these are the signs that we must throw out some of our old ways of traditional thinking about recruiting and retaining the right people. Adoption of innovative ideas and improving the process is the key to overcome these challenges.