Ever since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, our lifestyles, priorities, and expectations have changed. Above all, we’ve learned that respect, stability, and unity are essential, and that the main focus is on people once again. These values have translated into the recruitment process as well, driving new trends that will dominate 2022. To that end, here are some of the best recruitment strategies you should follow this year in order to reach success:
Prioritize remote recruitment
Perhaps the most noticeable impact the pandemic had on all companies is the sudden rise of remote work as a necessity rather than a benefit. The vast majority of the workforce was forced to swiftly switch to working from home at the height of the pandemic, with a significant percentage still working remotely or choosing hybrid work now.
Remote work is something you have to offer in order to remain competitive, but it does come with its own set of benefits. Online recruitment is much quicker and more cost-effective, and makes the entire process simpler and more diverse. Even the mere fact that you can easily access a global talent pool gives you endless new opportunities.
Focus on positive experiences
The candidate experience before, during, and after the recruitment process has a significant impact on your employer branding efforts, as well as your business’s reputation in the job market. As the competition is quite tight at the moment, and the possibility of a large talent shortage in the near future is high, no company can afford a loss of potential talent due to a bad reputation.
This is particularly important after the COVID-19 pandemic. This unprecedented situation has changed our perspective, encouraging candidates to only choose the companies that clearly show they appreciate and value their (potential) employees. For that reason, ensuring positive candidate experiences from the very beginning is more crucial than ever before.
Find better contractor solutions
Since the beginning of 2020, contractors, freelancers, and other contingent workers have gained notable popularity, and their use only continues to grow in 2022. However, this is also a challenging workforce group to manage, especially in terms of the laws and regulations that need to be followed when accessing the global talent pool.
In that case, investing in effective employer of record might be the best solution. An experienced and reliable provider will be able to deal with local laws and regulations, arrange work visas, ensure continuous payment cycles, reduce common payroll issues, and aid in workforce management, thus allowing you to focus on more pressing aspects of recruitment such as minimizing bad hires and maximizing employee retention.
Aim to maximize retention
On that note, avoiding bad hires, as well as the loss of good employees, is among the most crucial aspects to focus on. While this is always an important strategy, it becomes even more so after the pandemic, when businesses of all sizes have been affected financially and forced to lay off a number of good workers.
In 2022, utilizing tools that help to prevent these issues should be a priority, and case-based screening is one of the best solutions you could opt for. This form of screening enables candidates to demonstrate their full potential in practice, making it significantly easier to determine whether they actually have the skills and knowledge needed for the position, something that a traditional screening process might not always reveal.
Don’t overlook candidate soft skills
The increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is set out to transform the workplace as we know it, bringing advantages such as higher productivity and changing the skill sets that are required of human employees. However, one thing technology can’t offer (as of yet) are soft skills.
While hard skills are, of course, important to the recruitment process, they can always be learned over time. Soft skills, on the other hand, are earned and acquired through experience, and are truly necessary for ensuring success when combined with the right hard skills. That is why it’s recommended to focus on certain soft skills that will be the most relevant in 2022, such as resilience, adaptability, creativity, ethics, teamwork, and emotional intelligence.
As the world evolves, your recruitment processes need to change as well. While technology, adaptation, and diversity might be trending in the HR industry, your goal should still be the same – building your company with the best talent in a way that improves their experiences.
