During the last decade, we have seen a rise in the collaborative economy, but with the global economic crisis due to the pandemic and other factors, remote employment became the norm across markets.
While it was initially pioneered in the technology industry, numerous companies have already adapted this strategy for all or most of their departments. With things more or less back to normal in terms of health regulations, many businesses have taken notice of the benefits of hiring remote workers, and have decided to commit to hybrid work or changing their entire concept and becoming a remote company.
What Is Virtual Recruitment?
When a company looks for new personnel, conducts interviews, and brings new employees on board, without either party stepping foot inside an office, they are engaging in remote or virtual recruiting. This process is facilitated by technology that existed before the pandemic but, with the boom in remote working, it keeps evolving and gaining widespread acceptance.
How to Ensure a Successful Virtual Recruitment Process?
There are various essential elements you must consider to help you find and hire the best talent remotely. There is a natural progression from remote work to the modernization of procedures and tools that will make room for hiring, training, and onboarding new employees remotely.
The abilities you seek in candidates may change in a virtual work setting, and the processes that worked well for in-person onboarding may need to be simplified for remote training.
Train your recruiters
Although there are more resources than ever before to facilitate remote work, it is still crucial for employers to have professional recruitment training to familiarize themselves with the specifics of the process. Proper training will help you obtain the necessary skills to select the best employees, guide them and help them become invaluable members of the staff, and get them to connect with the company and want to stay there.
Keep in mind that companies that invest in training for their recruiters are more likely to successfully fill open positions, and even if they don’t, they’re more likely to earn the candidate’s respect and future referrals.
Check your candidate’s internet connection and the tools they are using
Modern technology allows us to accomplish our work from anywhere, but a reliable internet connection and a computer with particular hardware and software requirements are still necessary.
Even if it’s only temporary, knowing whether or not a new hire needs you to supply a home office setup is crucial when working remotely. Use the recruitment process to ensure they have the right tools and conditions to contribute to your business’s efficiency.
Choose the tools you will use for the interviews
Using a virtual conference platform such as Skype, Zoom, or Teams makes it possible to have in-person interviews with candidates who are located far away. Using emails and other apps that facilitate communication can serve to improve asynchronous communication, which is crucial for employee recruitment nowadays.
Electronic signing forms for new hire paperwork allow for remote onboarding, guaranteeing that even cross-border employees adhere to local employment requirements.
Interview your candidates through a video call
Thanks to video interview technologies, remote hiring is easier than ever. Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are just a few of the companies that are conducting virtual job interviews. You should use both one-way and two-way virtual interviews at different points of the process.
Two-way virtual interviews are a great replacement for in-person meetings, while one-way interviews can stand in for a phone screening. Like in-person interviews, both options will allow you to analyze your candidate’s non-verbal communication.
Craft convincing and accurate advertisements for available positions
Writing accurate, thorough, and engaging job postings is generally a good rule of thumb when recruiting, but it’s more vital when recruiting remotely. For this to work, it’s important to specify roles and obligations in detail. As an example, you can specify whether or not your organization is remote-first, remote-friendly, or a hybrid, and whether or not there are set working hours.
Have a methodical remote hiring approach in place
Creating a methodical hiring process is crucial for any business. It’s the best way to stay organized and keep things moving smoothly. And if you are hiring remotely, it can make a huge difference.
A structured remote hiring process will help maintain uniformity in interviews, decrease the danger of prejudice, and it will also give your candidates a better experience. The key is to identify all the steps, who is responsible for each of them, how and when should a task be completed, and so on.
Get ready as if you were going to an in-person meeting
Asking good, consistent questions will not only get you the information you need about the interviewees but will also assist you to avoid making unfair assumptions about them.
Keep your candidate engaged
Recruiters should be able to keep their candidates engaged throughout the hiring process, even if the interview is remote. Let them know the status of their application and how they are going in the recruiting process. To help you keep organized, consider using a management tool that will allow you to develop and nurture relationships during every stage of the hiring process.
Assess your candidates’ skills
Someone who is a good cultural fit but lacks the specific talents you need can benefit from on-the-job training and mentoring from someone already in the office. Attempting to do so in a remote setting presents extra difficulties. You can better understand how your candidate can contribute to your team through an objective evaluation of a writing sample or a hypothetical IT project. You can conduct a real-time test during your virtual interview, or give them a time-bound assignment. To make sure you’ve found the right candidate, you can even provide paid internships.
Conclusion
Regardless of whether you have been conducting virtual recruitment for years or you are just learning the ins and outs of hiring and managing remote staff, you can set the bar high as a remote employer. To do so you will have to get the proper recruitment training and refine your hiring, training, and onboarding procedures. If you are an employer interested in virtual recruitment, this guide will help you navigate some of the most frequent hurdles and learning curves.
