Why Virtual Hiring Is the Future of Recruitment
The Covid-19 pandemic affected the economy in a way people could not have anticipated. As a result, many of us are still battling to get back on our feet and make a living, while others have already tapped into the global market to find opportunities. One such opportunity is virtual hiring.
Virtually hiring candidates was never employers’ primary choice; however, it’s opening up a wealth of opportunities for recruiters searching for the best possible candidates in their fields.
Companies today can grab instant access to an almost unlimited pool of potential employees from around the globe using virtual hiring. The most distant corners of the world are no longer barriers for recruiters who now have an easy way to reach out to and screen candidates.
And what’s even better is that there are companies that can facilitate the process of hiring a remote team. Thanks to the internet, hiring remotely is no more a novelty but a necessity for thriving companies.
What Is Virtual Hiring?
As its name suggests, virtual hiring is the process of screening, interviewing, and hiring candidates remotely without having to meet them in person. The latest technology and widespread tools available can facilitate this process. For example, Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams are a few commonly used tools among businesses that actively hire remote resources around the globe.
Virtual hiring is believed to outweigh its in-person counterpart on many grounds, and the latest research from many organizations supports this narrative. Although virtual hiring has some great benefits, it also has some drawbacks.
Pros of Virtual Hiring
1. Provides the Continuity of Hiring When Face-to-Face Interviews Can’t Be Scheduled
Including a virtual recruitment process into your existing hiring strategy ensures the continuity of the process even when situations aren’t favorable for face-to-face interactions.
For instance, when things got tough during the pandemic, companies shifted to a complete remote model of working and hiring. Not only did this help them through bad times, but it also saved them a lot of time.
Moreover, some candidates are not always available to attend a face-to-face interview, so virtual hiring is the best way to get the process going smoothly and ensure a successful outcome.
2. Lowers Hiring and Onboarding Expenses Significantly
Hiring is often one of the most expensive aspects of a company’s operations. When you factor in the cost of interviewing and bringing on new employees, it can quickly eat up a considerable portion of your budget. As you hire more people, that percentage can only go up.
If properly designed, a virtual hiring process can allow you to streamline your application review and onboarding process and make it easy for job candidates to submit their information online.
Suppose you’re a startup or a small business. In that case, your company will save a lot of money on interview expenses by integrating virtual hiring, especially on travel expenses for out-of-town candidates. With this money, you can expand your business operations in the long run.
3. Provides Access to Offshore Talent
Recruiters can use virtual hiring to hire remote employees both onshore and offshore. Virtual recruiting is your best bet when you realize that your in-house team is overburdened and needs additional help from the outside.
You can get access to an infinite pool of talent when you start to look beyond the barriers of borders. And what’s even better is you can save a lot of money by hiring low-wage employees from regions like Africa and South Asia.
Cons of Virtual Hiring
1. Getting a Sense of a Company’s Culture is Harder
It can be challenging to gauge whether a candidate complements your company culture without inviting them into the office, introducing them to your team, and allowing them to see the workplace.
They may accept your job only to discover that your workplace or your team is not suitable for them, and this conflict can lead to their early departure. Many entry-level positions experience early attrition due to misaligned candidate expectations.
2. A Candidate May Not Feel As Valued As In-House Employees
In-house candidates, undoubtedly, enjoy more perks and benefits than remote employees. Also, the interaction between coworkers inside office premises is much smoother. This can cause your remote employees to feel less valued and compensated.
This is particularly true if you only conduct one-way video interviews, as this is something of a detached procedure. So, think about providing an interactive experience to your candidates by brainstorming virtual recruitment ideas.
4 Ways to Make Your Virtual Recruitment Process a Success
When you’re the one in charge of a virtual recruitment process, it can seem like a lot of pressure to get everything right. You want to make sure that whoever you hire will grow with the company and take on additional responsibilities as time goes on. Still, your time is limited, and there are only so many places you can look for qualified candidates.
The good news is there are ways you can make your virtual recruitment process is a success.
1. Adapting to a Modern Tech Stack
Virtual recruiting is primarily based on modern technology. Without it, you may not be able to meet your virtual hiring goals.
For example, if you want to introduce new pre-assessment videos for your candidates, make sure you have dedicated hiring software that aids the process. You would surely not want the software to give several downtimes, disrupting the pre-assessment process.
Suppose you want to get mass online applications from candidates online. In that case, the best practice is to integrate chatbots into your company’s website and program them to answer candidates’ frequently asked questions.
It’s a surefire way to lessen the burden on your community support team and provide immediate responses to your applicants’ queries. Thus, a win-win situation for you.
2. Leave No Room for Discriminatory Hiring Decisions
Whenever you decide to take your hiring process virtually, make sure you follow the law and won’t let any prejudiced decision negatively affect your company’s market position.
This means your recruitment process should not drop applications based on gender, disability, race, and religion.
One surefire way to reduce biases in hiring decisions is to introduce a blind hiring process. By eliminating prejudice in hiring, you can improve your recruiting process.
3. Define the Essentials for Hiring
According to a global survey , experts expect that 51% of all knowledge workers worldwide would be working remotely by the end of 2021, up from 27% of knowledge workers in 2019.
Self-motivation, self-discipline, effective communication, resourcefulness, and technological savvy are critical traits that remote employees should possess.
These traits may seem very basic, but employees working from home must significantly impact a company’s overall success.
Imagine that a recently hired remote employee does not know how to run Windows Wi-Fi diagnostics when they have connectivity problems. This will make you question your hiring decision at the end, right? So, it’s better to spend some time during resume screening to see how sound is a candidate’s tech knowledge.
4. Let Your Candidates Experience the Company Culture
Having mentioned this earlier in the cons section, making your candidates feel valued is one of the biggest challenges of hiring remotely.
However, there are ways you can overcome this barrier. For instance, you can provide them with exquisite virtual tours of the company, providing them with top-notch VR gadgets, and arrange two-way team meetings.
During the interview process, you should also pay particular attention to your culture pitch and tell stories and examples of how your culture is expressed at work to help your candidates visualize your company. This will give you a better sense of whether the candidate is a good fit.
Start Virtually Hiring Today
Virtual hiring makes so much sense in today’s digital world, where people constantly juggle work and life from multiple devices. It takes the stress out of the traditional application process and, in many ways, puts a candidate’s professional competence first, rather than their location.
Moreover, instead of being associated with the negative connotation of paperwork and lengthy interviews, it’s evident that more and more people are discovering how highly effective virtual hiring can be for both companies and candidates.
It all comes down to the four ways we discussed in this piece to better match the needs of both parties.
Hamza Mirza is a Content Writer and Social Media Lead atTechNerds.
Get the top recruiting news and insights delivered to your inbox every week. Sign up for the Recruiter Today newsletter.