The use of virtual recruitment methods is on the rise but there are some issues with virtual Talent Acquisition during & beyond the pandemic that need our attention
Virtual Recruitment challenges are now reflecting more and more in the talent acquisition efforts of the companies because of the dramatic shift from in-person interviews to completely digital recruitment.
Talent Acquisition has to be one of the most critical decisions made by a company or its HR personnel. Choosing the best-fit candidate from a plethora of applicants can prove to be quite challenging and tedious at the same time. But it is imperative that a talent acquisition manager understands the gravity of the process and take measures accordingly. With the onset of the pandemic, everything was impacted immensely, especially the job market. While there were several companies that couldn’t make it to keep all their employees, there were other firms that managed to create job opportunities and hire staff despite the tough times. These companies though wished to hire further, but the pandemic had already imposed various restrictions and limitations on the world, one of them being the lockdown. This meant that the candidates would not be able to go to the company to give an interview. That is when organizations began embracing the gift of hr tech – virtual recruitment and hiring.
Apart from making work from home possible for uncountable organizations, hrtech also made virtual recruitment possible for them.
“Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was – and still is – the most important thing we do.” – Marc Bennioff, Founder, Chairman, and co-CEO of Salesforce.
Virtual Recruitment is a boon, especially during the times when even the slightest physical contact could lead to the spread of a deadly virus. But there are also quite a few challenges that are faced by the organizations that implement virtual recruitment measures as a part of their talent acquisition strategies.
Let us look at some of the recruitment challenges faced during virtual recruitment.
1) Connectivity Issues
Internet issues are something that no one can be blamed for. There are several occasions where it has been seen that either the candidates or the employers face heavy connectivity issues that result in disturbance, lagging, or worse call drop-outs. Such things can be quite irksome when the process of recruitment is ongoing. Disturbances can lead to bad candidate hiring experience for both the parties. They can also lead to missing out on a good potential employee because the talent acquisition recruiter could not hear the answers properly or got annoyed by the unstable connectivity. This is a virtual recruitment challenge that is extremely common even after all the time spent on improving the digital connections.
2) Lack of Digital Infrastructure
Virtual recruitment can demand a complete digital infrastructure, which the employees may or may not have. Some companies make use of specific software and hardware, which are required of the candidates but might not have due to various reasons. Now, just because a candidate could not set up a digital infrastructure as per the demand and requirement of the organization, doesn’t mean he/she is not the right for the firm. Digital infrastructure shouldn’t be a virtual recruitment challenge as now hrtech is flexible enough to allow multiple integrations. Organizations need to educate themselves about the same and make suitable arrangements.
3) Misalignment among the teams
During the pandemic, many firms faced the problem of establishing collaboration amongst the teams and their members. When it comes to virtual recruitment challenges, starting from the particular department heads, to the HR department, collaboration is needed throughout. Understanding the job position and expectations from the employees can only be done if the members involved are in sync and harmony. If not, then there can be severe consequences and recruitment costs due to wrong hiring measures. On average, companies lost $14,900 on every bad hire, according to HRexchangenetwork. Alignment among the teams and their members can increase the hiring bandwidth and reliability.
4) Unawareness about the right keywords
When it comes to virtual recruitment, the job ad is also virtual, which means that the job application will also be digital. Today, there are many sites that allow employers to post their job vacancies and employees to apply for the same. But one very important aspect of this process is choosing the right keywords. A talent acquisition manager cannot be using ‘engineer’ as a keyword to fill the post of a marketing professional. This will result in inaccurate applications and employees of lower relevancy.
5) Discomfort on calls or videos
Virtual recruitment will either be followed on, on calls, or videos. But there are a number of people that are not that comfortable while talking on calls or speaking on videos. The social anxiety of being on a video or phone call anxiety are real issues and many people face them on a regular basis. This can lead to the candidate feeling unsettled and not respond to any communication by the company whatsoever resulting in loss of time and resources.
6) Inability to understand the company culture
Virtual recruitment strategies take into consideration many factors, but one of the highly significant aspects that gets overlooked is the inability of the candidates to understand the company culture. Knowing what environment and value-system you are getting into is a huge part of the decision making process when it comes to choosing jobs, and virtual recruitment challenges 2020 will tell you that digital interviewing makes it difficult for the candidates to analyze the culture of the organization. And since recruiters seldom realize the gravity of this problem, they fail to even consider it as a virtual recruitment challenge. That is also one of the reasons why good candidates choose not to join your organization.
7) Social, Non-verbal cues
When organizations come up with virtual recruitment ideas or sit down to analyze online recruitment challenges and solutions, one prominent factor always reflects as a barrier, and that is of limitations to understanding social, non-verbal cues. Many virtual recruitment platforms will allow you to collaborate amongst your teams to identify the best fit, but very rarely would they have capabilities that can help you in understanding the non-verbal communication factors of the employee and in turn helping you solve this virtual recruitment challenge.
We’re amidst a pandemic, even today, and the pressure of finding the right job can make candidates nervous or distracted. Virtual calls can be very distracting and the WFH culture has kicked the corporate meeting etiquettes out the window. None of these factors are a testament to the capabilities of the candidate or the recruiter, it’s just the unavailability of a solution that will allow recruiters to understand actions that are not put into words.
As a part of combating the virtual recruitment challenges, enterprises need to re-evaluate their entire recruitment strategies and integrate newer tools and strategies that not only makes the process streamlined, but also enhances the candidate experience.
Though there are a couple of challenges with virtual recruitment, they are not something that cannot be taken care of. The hr tech industry is widespread and a solution that can resolve these problems and enhance the virtual recruitment process shall prevail in the market space.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tanvi Tirthani
Content Contributor, HRTech Cube
Tanvi Tirthani is a content writer and strategist with a special foray into technology. She has been a keen researcher in the tech domain and is responsible for strategizing the social media scripts to optimise the collateral creation process.
