The COVID19 crisis has taken us all by surprise. It has given us challenges we didn’t see coming – or that we ever imagined we would overcome. The number of people being left without a job is simply heartbreaking – and still rising day by day.But, for every crisis that we have encountered – fortunately – they have all had an end. And given birth to new beginnings. This will also be the case with COVID19.
This blog deals with recruiting, candidate screening, building corporate culture and ensuring that people find meaningful jobs by hitting the sweet spot between personal values, skills and personality. So, this is our attempt to envision how COVID19 might affect these areas.
The crisis came quickly. Surprised us all – including business leaders all over the world. It hit many organizations hard. From one day to the next. Leaving only drastic actions as available alternatives to save their businesses. Cutting deep in the number of employees.
Many economists believe we are looking at a V (or maybe a U) shaped event, meaning that the crisis came fast, but that the recovery after the crisis will be similarly fast. This means that we are probably looking at a scenario where we need to shift from P(ark) to D(rive) much faster than we anticipate. In the context of this blog, this means that we suddenly will need to hire – and hire faster than most of us have done before.
So you start posting jobs and the applications flood in. In the hundreds. And in some cases even in the thousands. Too many to read thoroughly. The risk of hiring the wrong candidate is high.
Huge respect to all recruiters who has this major responsibility with considerable consequences for both the candidate and the company.
The importance of hiring the candidate with the right personality for the job, the right skill-set, the right values and culture compatibility is definitely becoming more and more important. Get this wrong when mass hiring and it could have catastrophic consequences for the organization. You risk weakening the core foundation of the organization – your values and culture. Finding candidates with the right personality, values and culture at this stage is vital for the growth and competitive advantage for your organization post-COVID19.
Everybody is talking about the importance of this, but how we are actually going to work with this if we stick to the recruitment process we used back when things were “normal” – before COVID19?
We believe it is time for a change in how you screen your talent pool (candidate pool) and how we select candidates. We must start seeing each person in the candidate pool as one individual and as one unique talent. Consequently, to find the best match we must screen all potential talents and applicants with that approach. Objectively and with the same standards across all candidates.
You will likely meet personalities you will not have thought of. That fit your organization, division, department or team better than you would expect.
In HR there are numerous opportunities to take giant leaps by using HR technology – incl. recruiting tech that can support you, as a recruiter, talent acquisition manager, hiring manager etc. and help you screen candidates faster and better than ever!
Because things are going to change for the better again. And you have the opportunity to come out of the crisis as an even stronger recruitment professional!