How “post-covid” recruitment could look like? Drafting from the present to future reviews. § Part I §
By: Carolina Amieva
Tags: Real People, Diversity And Inclusion, Recruitment, Recruitment Process, Covid 19

How people worked before has drastically changed. At the same time how people are being employed is changing constantly and recruitment (where I work now) it’s where I am seeing the deepest changes. We work directly with people therefore we are on the frontlines in this battle between old-new and unknown. We are a living social experiment of what recruitment could look like. This is a HUGE opportunity to press pause and analyze what has been working, what it’s not, what new ways we have been able to test/experiment during these times, and what we can still develop and even better, improve.

Below I sketched one possible answer. How I see it today, November 2020. Of course, it's an open discussion, a not-one-fit-all answer, a work in process that I am determined to update and revisit from time to time (and if you are interested you can collaborate as well).

This article is the introduction to a four-part series, about this (for me) fascinating subject.

In each part we will dig deeper into each one of the rings we presented in the initial diagram, so we can understand better how we can do it and of course keep thinking on adding and thinking outside of the box.

Sidenote: To build this diagram I have loved to use this new tool: Miro. It has enabled me to create and visualize my thinking on another level. I recommend it so much!

As is quickly seen in this diagram, recruitment has to be seen as a cohesive and complex network where people have to become the main characters. They are deeply connected and cooperate together with different roles between who is leading (Talent acquisition, Hiring Managers, HR, Other teams involved) the recruitment process, the candidates, and the current employees. We have to design a coherent and strategic plan that can glue all these parts together to find synergies and power their strengths.

Companies can't continue thinking and performing recruitment as a closed and secret box. We have to develop and act with an equal mentality between each one of those parts. Being transparent and horizontal is what today's candidates (and employees) are looking for. The key is sharing learning content in an open and accessible way facilitating spaces where talent can quickly understand:

what companies are doing and why?

their recruitment processes

what projects are they working on currently plus sharing and collaborating in open source projects with the community?

who are those awesome people working there and how candidates can connect with them (online events, webinars, projects)

We live in the “tutorial era”. Who hasn't google How to “something” and then found some written or video tutorials for everything in that subject? What if we could do it when looking for a job or when we want to know more about a company? Certainly, it would be much better if companies took charge of that since we know that there is already so much indirect information online.

Sharing, open, and accessible (relevant) information will enable improvements that will lead to raise hiring quality (and candidate and employee's experiences).

2. Companies cant continue recruiting for people that don't exist, or for the same type of people that we were before corona. We are in a new time, we never have been so vulnerable together and because of that, we have emphasized with our fellow humans like never before. This is an opportunity to also take that vulnerability and recruit for and with those real and diverse kinds of people that we really are.

Therefore, we have to acknowledge that this is a horizontal relationship from people to people in which we have to all agree on mutual respect and fair rules.

Today’s circumstances are unique: candidates, employees, talent acquisition, managers are all those same vulnerable people that have gone through a lot this year (don’t we?). Maybe some of them have lost someone, got sick themselves, lost their job, their stability, or simply have re-prioritized things that made them realize that they won’t accept companies that behave inhumanly anymore.

Why in this particular and common fragile time of history, where we are all seeing things in a new perspective: valuing life more than ever, our time and what we can do with it, our families, our spare time, our liberty… why will we choose to return to that same unjust and depredating world that we had before?

Why should candidates have to keep allowing “star-like” companies that won’t reply to emails, or don’t give any feedback after an interview? Why pursue a company that acts arbitrarily during interviews? Who wants to be treated like a nobody in a very human and fragile post-covid world?

3. Companies have to continually be better with data (gathering and analyzing and acting on it). Recruitment and employees' experience cant be led by feelings, sensations, arbitrary decisions, and subjective thinking. Organizations have to start listening to what candidates and employees are saying about them. How? There is so many tools to do it, so much data-driven insight we can take from that, so much value they can add. It's just a matter to have clear objectives and strategies, and also to make them accessible. Data will also allow companies to understand what is happening, be more efficient, quick, and flexible, and accept failure as a part of success, to have an iterative mindset.

4. We have been living in the mass-media communication era for quite some time now, but something has changed, digital communication took over and has enabled us to stay connected during these hard times and share more than ever. In recruitment, companies have to also be more outspoken about their stories and purposes:

who are the employees working there

who the candidate will potentially be when join and/or be a part of that company?

The story is for and about people working together for a common goal. Challenges, a lot! But that should be the main focus as well.

In that sense, companies have to be more precise and personalize better their information in a transparent, and authentic way both internally and externally.

As you can see, this only can be done together as a team. Cross-functional collaboration has to be a trending topic within those organizations.

Overall we have to think about how all those present and past behaviors reflect on the company employer branding strategy. It's not anymore just about what companies say about themselves. It's more about what they actually DO.

Companies more than ever are on the spot to be better, more human, and vulnerable. They have an exciting opportunity to attract all those candidates genuinely, to build and attract talent communities around their knowledge, and to show that they are leading the way to a better workplace: more inclusive, diverse, flexible that can adapt to these new and never more human-friendly times.