If Hiring Stops?
Reinvent yourself, Recruiter
There is no question that this has been a very singular year. A good word to describe it would be “Adaptation”, as we’ve all had to change and adapt almost everything in our lives in a very short period of time. For most people, these changes were related to their workplace, moving from an office to the living room, or adapting routines to this new reality. But what if you also had to adapt the very essence of the job you were hired for?
Through the perspective of an IT Recruiter at the corporate startup tb.lx, in this article, we will show you how we adapted our daily work in the wake of sudden challenges and provide you with our learnings to master your next adaption challenge.
The Challenge
Over the last few months, hiring wasn’t as key as we anticipated it to be, and since we have a small but very over-achieving HR team, we sat down and ask this question: “If hiring is not a priority, what are we supposed to do now?”. The answer was clear: We adapt. What can we do to continue developing ourselves, becoming better in what we do, and, at the same time, keep bringing value to the company?
Recruitment beyond hiring — what we did:
1. Keep every candidate in the loop — Give feedback and don’t let the pipeline dry
Whether you are actively recruiting or not, it’s essential that you give them that feedback whenever you have candidates in your recruitment process. Be as transparent as possible, and make sure they keep engaged with your company to still be potential candidates in the future.
A recruiter must take in mind that due to the uncertainty of the current times, it is also important not to let the pipeline dry because who knows what the future holds? Imagine that suddenly you have to hire a full team in 2 months. By maintaining expectations aligned, you can always keep getting to know people, interview them, and keep their CV on your talent pool, so when the right time comes, you can reconnect with promising talent.
2. Survey your candidate experience
Receiving feedback about your work is always great, and the same applies when it comes to recruitment. Do you know how the candidates feel after being interviewed by you? Is the feedback you provide (I’m assuming every recruiter gives feedback, right?😉) helpful and meaningful to the candidate? Were they able to learn something during your recruitment process? Most importantly, how likely is the candidate to recommend your company to a friend or family member looking for a job?
When recruitment isn’t a priority, it doesn’t mean you should completely forget about it. In fact, it’s a great time to take a step back and reevaluate how you do things, and if there is something you could do differently.
3. Learning about new topics and sharing knowledge
Now that your priorities changed, you might have more free time to dedicate to your professional self-development. Learn new things, research the latest trends, and HR best practices.
There are many blogs with articles about the most various topics, like sourcing, recruitment best practices, structuring your interviews, diversity in recruitment, and so much more. Below you can find some examples:
- SourceCon — Sourcing Tips & Tricks, Tools, and Best Practices.
- Undercover Recruiter — Employer Branding, Talent Acquisition, and Workplace related articles.
- tb.lx insider — Our one and only Medium page with articles about Software, Productivity, Data, HR, and so much more.
- Amazing Hire — Sourcing and Recruitment best practices and tools.
- TalentLyft — Tutorials, Recruitment, HR Trends, and Culture & People.
- Social Talent Blog — The latest hiring trends
You can also spend some time asking yourself if you are happy with the tools you are using and if some tasks could be done more efficiently with a different tool. For example, sourcing is an essential task for some recruiters, but searching for the best talent can be very difficult for mainly two reasons: 1) They can’t find them or 2) They can’t attract them. The good news is: there are plenty of tools that can help you with that. Some examples are below:
- Recruit’em X-Ray Search — Creates Boolean Search Strings instantly ( a life and time saver)
- Glossary Tech CV Scanner — Examine tech terms on CV’s using NLP
It’s always a good idea to share your new knowledge with your team. And trust me, it will help you a lot in consolidating all the new topics you have learned. At the end of the day, it’s also a great way to make sure you keep your team updated too!
Finally, what lessons did we learn from this shift?
- Adaptation is a soft-skill everyone should develop — It sounds simple. Still, the truth is when one faces a situation where they have to adapt quickly, it can be frustrating to start doing things differently and step out of their comfort zone. The key to adaptation is to think outside the box — What can I do to continue developing myself?
- There is always something new to learn — it doesn’t matter if you have one year of experience or thirty. Knowledge is ever-evolving, new ways of doing old things are always appearing, and one should keep updated on that.
- Lastly, avoid thinking, “we’ve been doing it like this for years. Why change it now?”. Embrace change, especially if it’s imposed. In a fast-paced world, things are always changing. Resisting change will only make it harder. So, don’t be afraid to reevaluate how you’ve been doing things and do them differently.
As someone once said, “Things change. The only thing constant is change. It’s up to you to be adaptable”.
Have you experienced a similar situation where the essence of your role was challenged by the pandemic? Feel free to share with us your adaptation strategy and your journey during these times!
Ana Cunha works in Talent Acquisition at tb.lx in Lisbon, Portugal.
