Recruiting Trends: 5 COVID-Friendly Ways to Find New Hires

Almost overnight, the spread of COVID-19 made working remotely and social distancing an everyday thing. It’s had an impact on recruiting trends, hiring, and the way job seekers look for work.

Wondering what recruiting trends you should put into practice to find new hires? Here’s what you need to know:

Recruiting Trends: 5 COVID-Friendly Ways to Find New Hires

Recruiting Trend #1: Online job fairs

In many metropolitan areas, COVID-19 has brought traditional in-person job fairs and conferences to a halt. 

This is a highly effective recruiting strategy to meet and greet potential candidates, but large group gatherings are restricted in many areas. 

And even if small group gatherings are permissible, they’re often not cost-effective because attendance is limited.

The fix: If your usual job fairs and events are on hold, it’s not a lost cause. Many traditional job fairs and events are moving to online and virtual events. 

Instead of hosting an in-person booth to meet with candidates, the virtual conference venue gives you the opportunity to book appointments with job seekers. And if you partner with other employers, you’ll attract a bigger talent pool.

To get people to show up or attend a webinar, you’ll need to leverage social media (more on that in a bit).

Recruiting Trend #2: Webinars

Maybe you hosted a job fair a couple of times a year pre-COVID-19 to recruit new hires. 

• Potential candidates visit your business
• Listen to a presentation
• Network with you and other job seekers, and 
• Get to meet with your team face-to-face to learn more, explore career opportunities, and see if they might be a good fit.

While some employers may still be able to do this, COVID-19 restrictions in many areas put the brakes on this kind of recruiting.

The fix: Host a webinar. Lots of digital tools are available to make this easy. And the format can still be pretty similar to traditional in-person recruiting events. 

• Put it on your calendar. 
• Let potential candidates know about it. 
• Make it easy for them to register and attend.
• On the webinar, give some background on your company, career opportunities, and immediate hiring needs. Then open it up to questions.
• At the end of the webinar, invite candidates to apply or schedule an interview.

Recruiting Trend #3: Social media sourcing

Finding candidates on social media was already a recruiting trend in play before COVID-19 changed the game. But now it’s more important than ever if you want to attract top talent.

The fix: Instead of waiting for top talent to find you, go find them on social media and connect. Invite them to book a call or apply for a position.

Basic search functions and specialized groups on many social media platforms make it possible to find the type of candidates you need. 

Looking for candidates on social media? Use:

• LinkedIn
• Alignable
• Facebook
• Twitter

Search for: [job title] + [your city]

• You’ll get other employer's job listings with this search. 
• But you’ll also get the names of people who already know the ins and outs of the position you’re trying to fill. Reach out and connect.
  

Post opportunities on your social media profile

You should also use your social media channels to:

• Post career opportunities
• Answer questions and engage in conversations with job seekers
• Announce and invite potential candidates to attend online job fairs and webinars
• Build your employer brand and reach by posting content regularly
• Reach more potential candidates with paid advertising opportunities

Recruiting Trend #4: Career-page power

Let’s say you have a current opening. You post the job and start to see a spike in traffic on your website from job seekers.

That’s good for recruiting in the COVID-era IF your career page is designed to attract job seekers. 

The fix: Your career page can help you attract top talent by:

• Including keywords or key phrases
• Optimizing page content for keywords or phrases
• Including contact information (names, email, phone numbers, etc.)
• Highlighting your company culture, benefits & perks, products, services, and goals
• Showcasing your wins like awards, client success stories, case studies, etc.

Recruiting Trend #5: Virtual testing & skills assessments

It wasn’t that long ago that in-person testing and skills assessments were a regular part of the recruiting process.

• An interested candidate applies for a job
• Based on their application, they make the cut
• But before you schedule an interview, they’re required to take a test or skills assessment. It’s one more way to vet candidates and save you time.
• If they pass with flying colors, you schedule an interview and move on to the next step in your hiring process

The fix: Virtual testing and skills assessments can still be part of your hiring process during COVID-19. But instead of in-person appointments to accomplish this, you can use online software and skills assessment tools to measure competency levels.

Hiring is still happening during COVID-19

COVID-19 has changed traditional recruiting trends, putting more emphasis on finding great candidates online. But if you make these shifts, you can still find top talent.