Attracting talent in a Pandemic and beyond

5 Tips for attracting talent in a Pandemic and beyond

In the face of Covid-19 the technology sector has been mainly resilient. This is partly shown through the number of organisations still hiring and expanding. Naturally, new factors must be considered when hiring and some previous hiring tactics won’t be suitable in this current climate. I have therefore put together some tips to help companies effectively attract talent in this new landscape:

1.      Don’t make it all about the candidate

• Don’t be too focused on what is required from the talent but focus on what YOU can provide to talent.
• Now more than ever the message about WHY talent should join your firm should be loud and clear. One way to do this is to focus on what the role/company can offer the candidate rather than having a focus on purely what is needed from the candidate.

2.      What has been your pandemic response – internally/externally?

• Give insight into how you are handling this pandemic, candidates want to know. It’s no use ignoring the elephant in the room. Acknowledge the current climate to reassure talent that they will join a safe and progressive environment.
• Don’t be tone deaf – have an appreciation that it is not business as usual despite your efforts to keep marching on.

3.      Clarity and transparency in the interview process:

• Be clear with talent about decision-making timelines and the interview process
• If you are interviewing now with the view of making a decision once the companies “returns to work” – BE CLEAR about this.
• Detail the adjustments you have made to the interview process – For example: How do you plan on using Video in the process? In the first interview, will the candidate be speaking to a human via video or answering automated questions on video? Clarity with this time of information is critical especially during this pandemic where there is enough confusion already.

4.      Be aware of the Holistic image your company portrays:

Top talent will not want to join your organisation based on one job advert alone. One advert is not enough – a holistic picture of your company acts as the advert for a role. This holistic view includes employee reviews, the website, social media accounts, employee interviews, news coverage and more, it ALL plays a part. Therefore it is important to be aware of what image you’re portraying externally across all of these areas.

What is perhaps more important is ensuring that the external view of the company aligns to what the company is like in reality. The cost of hiring talent into a falsely advertised environment is high and detrimental to the reputation of the business.

5.      Remote working:

• Truth is that a post pandemic workplace will look very different to a pre pandemic workplace. Several companies have already confirmed they will continue remote working well into 2021. The future of work which was spoken about so much is not in the future anymore – it is very much in the here and now. This pandemic has caused the attitudes of the workforce to shift and not be so fixed on office working. Companies hiring must be appreciative of this fact and be thinking of how to pivot in this new landscape. Having plans/systems already in place for the new way of working will be attractive to new talent as it points to the progressive mindset of the company. No one wants to work for a company that can’t adapt, so be sure to get this right and make it clear in your job adverts and marketing material.
• Working remotely is one thing yet working remotely in an optimised way is another. It is crucial to ensure that a solid infrastructure is in place to allow new staff to thrive when working remote.
• Be creative with newly available budget to ensure that there is an optimised remote working environment for staff. E.g: Workplace travel costs have reduced so this cost saving could be reassigned to IT to ensure remote working tech and security is robust enough.

Hope this is helpful. Utilise these tips and share with others who could find this useful. I’m happy to expand on these points and give further insight to companies/ hiring managers who would like it. Get in touch: joseph@six-33.com