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Tag: Distance Economy

3 Ways To Reduce Employee Turnover With Candidate Relationships

Posted on by Rachel Heller

In the world of recruitment, finding top talent is only half the battle—it’s all about candidate relationships. For hiring teams with goals to not only reel stellar candidates in, but to also ensure that candidates stay engaged in an opportunity that lives up to expectations, talent retention requires just as much attention as talent acquisition.

As a recruiter, if this component of hiring is overlooked (as it all-too-often is), an alarmingly high employee turnover rate can directly negate your efforts to grow your teams. And within the age of the Great Resignation as more and more companies lose their top performers to other opportunities, now is the time to amplify your employee retention efforts.

If the importance of driving retention needed further proof, the cost of replacing an employee reportedly amounts to between 90% to 200% of their annual salary, meaning that keeping retention top-of-mind from the start of the interview process can save both time and money down the road.

We’ve talked about the importance of prioritizing candidate relationships in order to turn candidates into new hires, yet this key component of hiring is equally important when ensuring those new hires decide to stick around for a while. 

While 31% of employees reportedly left their new job within the first six months of working, this statistic doesn’t have to be the reality for your organization. In fact, it is incredibly preventable, and the solution lies in cultivating strong, genuine connections with potential new hires from the get-go. Read on to learn how to use candidate relationships as your secret weapon in boosting retention and reducing turnover.

Be Transparent With Advancement Opportunities

Employees don’t just want to have a job at your organization – they want a career, and part of having a career means having a defined path for promotions and advancement. If these opportunities aren’t present, employees aren’t afraid to look to other places, seen in the more than one-quarter of employees that are reportedly hunting for a new career for better advancement opportunities. 

Clearly and transparently communicating the projected career path in the interviewing stage not only bolsters candidate relationships with a trustworthy foundation of communication but also ensures that both your hiring team and the candidate are on the same page with what can be expected in growth opportunities. 

With 51% of hires left feeling misled over opportunities for career progression, being upfront about how your candidates can advance within the role mitigates the chance that they’ll be disappointed with these opportunities down the line and will decide to move on to a different organization. 

Convey Your Organization’s Culture

Clear communication is undoubtedly a core component in forming a strong relationship with candidates that translates to success and retention once they’re hired, yet this goes beyond articulating growth opportunities: this also means communicating the company culture. 

Company culture has always been somewhat difficult to fully convey to candidates, and the distance economy along with the new norm of remote hiring has made this concept even more abstract and difficult to properly illuminate. But with 38% of workers wanting to leave their jobs due to the culture, it’s evident that taking time to communicate a clear image of the workplace’s culture in the interview process is a must-do.

In the end, a candidate relationship embedded with open discussions on culture ensures that whoever is hired for the role fully understands and aligns with the environment and values of the organization, reducing the likeliness of turnover due to a bad cultural fit down the line.

Demonstrate Flexibility When Hiring

If the rise of remote working has taught us anything, it’s that flexibility is good for business. With 42% of employees reporting that they would leave their jobs for a more flexible work environment, companies that don’t offer flexibility risk losing out on acquiring and retaining top talent.

Facilitating candid conversations with candidates on their options for flexible work and flexible schedules is a great way to both strengthen the candidate relationship and make sure that the new hire won’t quit soon after they start the job due to dissatisfaction with the room for flexibility provided within the position.

But, showing is nearly always better than telling, so if you want your recruiting team to really stand out from the crowd, it’d be wise to demonstrate your organization’s commitment to flexibility using the tools in your tech stack. You can make flexibility paramount in the interview process with optimized virtual interviewing experiences, complete with self-scheduling capabilities that allow candidates to interview at a time that is most convenient for them.

The Bottom Line 

When faced with an increasingly picky candidate pool combined with job-hopping employees that drive up turnover rates, acquiring and retaining talent can oftentimes feel like an uphill battle. In times like this, cultivating the candidate relationship grows ever more important. This means enacting hiring practices that present potential hires with a genuine, true-to-life preview of the job.  

Check out our eBook on the candidate relationship to learn how to give candidates personable experiences at every step in your hiring process.

The Candidate Relationship: Seth Waterman from Databricks

Posted on by Rachel Heller

In the distance economy, the talent competition continues to grow more cut-throat as remote jobs garner hundreds upon thousands of eager applicants. Fine-tuning your hiring strategy to foster a strong candidate relationship makes the difference between a candidate accepting or rejecting an offer. 

For candidates like Seth Waterman, feeling prioritized during the interview process made accepting the role of Partner Sales Director at Databricks a no-brainer.

With GoodTime in their tech stack, Databricks streamlines their hiring to win over Seth and other stellar candidates. But that’s not all. Thanks to GoodTime’s interviewer training paths, Databricks increased the size of their interviewer pool, allowing them to move candidates forward faster and deliver quick and easy candidate experiences.

Read on to learn how GoodTime helped Seth accept Databricks’ job offer by boosting one of the most defining factors in every interview: the candidate relationship.

Igniting the Candidate Relationship

Fast-Tracked Hiring Process

73% of job seekers say that job hunting is one of the most stressful events of life. Painstakingly long hiring procedures can only make matters worse. Throughout his job search, Seth experienced this all-too-common reality: companies with drawn-out interview processes that sour the candidate experience.

That’s where Databricks stood out from the crowd. After using GoodTime to supercharge their hiring, what could’ve been over a month-long interview process took less than three weeks.

“It was the first time in six years that I had really considered making a move in my career, and with the speed and pace that they worked at through GoodTime, it really made me feel the urgency that they had in me as a candidate.”

— Seth Waterman, Partner Sales Director at Databricks

When companies double down on their tech stack to implement a smooth interview process, candidates feel that their time is honored. From here, the candidate relationship only grows stronger.

Candidate-Driven Interviews

With 87% of candidates preferring to lead interviews, it’s no surprise that candidate-driven interview processes yield more success than the company-driven approach. With the help of GoodTime’s advanced interview scheduling, Databricks put Seth in the driver’s seat with a hiring process centered around his schedule. 

As over half of job seekers prefer more flexibility over a higher salary, flexibility is a growing priority for candidates. Making self-scheduling a central part of the hiring process can be key to creating a great first impression — and first impressions are everything when it comes to recruitment.

How a candidate is treated in the interview process heavily dictates whether they accept a job offer. In fact, 68% of applicants believe that how they’re treated as a candidate reflects how the organization treats their employees. Implementing a candidate-driven interview process ensures candidates that they’d be stepping into a flexible and trusting work environment.

Learn More About Seth’s Candidate Experience

In the end, both Seth and the Databricks recruiting team came out on top. Seth felt valued at every step of his interview journey, and the recruiting team snagged a star candidate. Prioritizing the candidate relationship to win top talent: it works every time.

“If you’re not using GoodTime today, I’d definitely look into it. If you’re interested in having a premier candidate experience for your company, it will go a long way in creating that type of atmosphere.”

— Seth Waterman, Partner Sales Director at Databricks

Watch the video below to hear more about Seth’s experience with Databricks and GoodTime.

How the Distance Economy Changed the Way We Work

Posted on by Rachel Heller

In 2019, only 6% of Americans worked from home — a number that soared to 45% early in the pandemic. People everywhere went from working side-by-side to collaborating solely online in a matter of weeks.

More than just where we work, there’s no question that this distance economy has impacted how we work. It’s even changed what people want from work.

Feelings of social isolation and burnout drove candidates to re-prioritize what’s important to them. And now they’re demanding the very thing they’ve been missing the most — genuine connections and conversations around the things that matter. The distance economy generated a need to communicate differently.

63% of candidates say most employers don’t effectively communicate

Candidates want regular feedback and communication during the interview process. In remote hiring, where human connection is lacking, this is more important than ever.  

84% of candidates want hiring process transparency before they apply 

Emerging from a period of uncertainty, candidates want to see full transparency from companies, including what to expect with salaries, benefits, job responsibilities, and work arrangements.

37% of people experience lower trust in leadership     

Remote work created feelings of isolation for many. Connection builds trust, and it’s important to start building that connection as early as the interview stage. The distance economy created a desire for a more personally fulfilling work experience.

33% of recruiters say more candidates ask about their DEI initiatives than before the pandemic

Candidates want to be a part of an equitable workplace that demonstrates a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. And they’re prepared to pass up job offers from companies that don’t.

76% of millennials want to know about a company’s social and environmental stance before accepting a job       

Environmental and social commitment matters to many candidates, especially the largest segment of today’s workforce — millennials.

More than one in three candidates would take a pay cut for learning opportunities

The uncertainty of the recent economic crisis accelerated the need for upskilling, especially in technology. Candidates want employers who can maximize their potential and set them up for a better tomorrow. The distance economy amplified the need to feel appreciated and prioritized.

75% of people say their mental health is now a top priority

Remote work took a major toll on personal well-being. Now, candidates are looking for employers that place as much value on mental health as they do.

Flexibility is the fastest-growing priority for job seekers right now. Candidates want continued flexibility to gain better work-life balance and to prioritize their mental and physical health.

Only 17% of remote employees want to return to the office full-time

Two years into the pandemic, people have figured out how to work from home. Now, they’re looking for companies that give them the flexibility to work in a way that suits their life.

Trust, transparency, flexibility. If you’re noticing a pattern in the data being reported, you’re not alone. Now more than ever before people want genuine connection. For hiring leaders, that means developing positive candidate relationships. 

Elevate Your Recruitment Process Today

If you want to stand out among other companies in the distance economy, you need recruitment tech that truly prioritizes candidates. Look no further than GoodTime Hire.

GoodTime Hire harnesses Candidate Relationship Intelligence to automate coordination, build relationships during interviews, and provide actionable insights to continuously improve your hiring process.

Learn more about how Hire can take your recruitment process to the next level.

How to Run High-Quality Interviews in the Distance Economy

Posted on by Rachel Heller

Interviews are a critical part of any hiring phase. But what happens when you have to undertake these interviews against the backdrop of an emerging distance economy? It’s more challenging when you have to undertake the interviewing process remotely. Unless you employ impeccable skills and tactics, you’ll likely miss the mark in your recruitment process. 

So, how do you ensure that your remote interview process is above board? Scott Parker, Director of Product Marketing at Goodtime, spoke with Siadhal Magos, Founder and CEO of Metaview. Here’re some useful takeaways from the LinkedIn Live conversation that can be handy for hiring leaders managing the remote hiring processes. 

Prepare Your Interviewers Like Your Company Depends on It

When it comes to building candidate relationships, there’s little room for error during remote interviews. The days of the fashionably decorated offices loaded with perks are done for the foreseeable future, so preparation and proper training are key.

In most cases, candidates anticipate a polished interview process with minimal hitches. Having specialized training paths to ensure you have the right people asking the right questions to the best candidates is everything.

The interview preparation phase involves more than just selecting a panel of interviewers. Preparation involves optimizing your tech stack, the questions being asked, the interview sequence (who’s asking what and at what stage), and the scheduled times for the interviews.

Unlike face-to-face interviews, where you have more leeways to make adjustments, there’s very little wiggle room for remote interviews, especially if they’re across multiple time zones. If you want to run a high-quality interview in the distance economy, create training paths and interview templates to scale your process efficiently while keeping it bespoke to each candidate and role.   

Train a Broad Pool of Interviewers 

The new distance economy means the candidate pool is far deeper, which could easily overwhelm your team. A mistake some hiring managers make is settling for a smaller interviewer pool, which exposes the team to two negative outcomes: burnout and a slow time-to-hire.

It’s critical to empower your interviewers both in skill set and in load balancing. If you anticipate interviewing 70% of the shortlisted talent, you need to have at least 30% of an equivalent number of interviewers to oversee the interviews. 

It’s essential to expand the interviewer pool when dealing with remote interviews. This way, you have room for diversity, increased productivity and better succession planning. Before commencing the interview process, empower the interview team in a way that they can manage the process seamlessly. It’s also important to note that your interviewers are the face of your brand. What they portray during the interview is what the interviewees will take as the actual representation of your brand.

Plainly: an exhausted and dismissive interview panel will absolutely send the wrong signal. Don’t let it happen. 

Invest in the Right Resources

It’s surprising how hiring managers can set a very high standard for the candidates, yet rarely invest as much in the interviewing team. The interviewer training process is helpful as it sets the standards when dealing with interviewers.

Properly trained interviewers can cut the actual time of recruitment by up to 50%. The quality of the actual interview process depends more on the skill level of the interviewers than on the number of panelists. An interviewer should have conversational skills and analytical capabilities when managing the recruitment process. Other aspects such as experience in managing people also come in handy.

As an organization, it’s essential to invest the time in training your interviewers. When dealing with remote candidates, specific skills are critical. Unfortunately, most of these necessary skills cannot be attained without a formal, standardized training. 

Vary Your Question Types 

The process of interviewing candidates encompasses both open and closed-ended questions. Sometimes, direct, closed questions during an interview save time. But in other cases, you also need to listen to what the interview has said in length about some topic areas. This is significantly more so when dealing with remote interviews. 

In most cases, open-ended questions are helpful in the modern distance economy context. Open-ended questions allow you to probe the candidates more and invite them into a conversation. It’s important to do this, since it will enable the candidate to feel at ease and blend into the conversation. It’s essential to set questions so that they invite a broad range of responses.

The future of hiring will witness a mix of remote, in-person and hybrid work settings. Open-ended interviews present a chance for interviewees to explain how they intend to ensure flexibility in response to the uncertain future. 

 It will also help put the interviewee on the different spot-on issues. On the other hand, closed-ended questions allow the interviewee to give short answers on direct matters. 

The Bottom Line

The distance economy continues to disrupt how businesses run and operate. Talent acquisition teams must adjust and adapt to this evolving world of remote hiring. Optimizing remote interviews is among the new norms that every TA leader must embrace to develop the best candidate relationship possible. 

How to Cultivate Great Candidate Relationships in the Distance Economy

Posted on by Rachel Heller

It’s no secret that the global shutdown in March 2020 forever changed the way we work.

For most, the first phase of this so-called distance economy meant physically distancing ourselves from people we’d previously worked with side-by-side. But as the pandemic continued, many workers made a permanent shift, and jobs that were location-agnostic from the start became widely accepted.

Since then, we’ve gone from working in close quarters with co-workers to collaborating online from different corners of the world. Yet while productivity has soared, erasing the misconception that remote work is inefficient, both social connections and company culture have suffered.

People are responding to the perceived void of human relationships by prioritizing the very thing they’ve been missing — genuine connection.

How can talent leaders foster genuine connections when everything feels so…distant? It starts by understanding how to build the candidate relationship, and how it ultimately drives the entire candidate experience.

Improve Communication

Despite its many benefits, remote work also created a disconnect that left people craving more human interaction — even if that interaction happens virtually. That’s why when job seeking, candidates are eager to see how they might fit into a new remote environment in a meaningful way. 

During the hiring process, modern candidates look for collaborative exchanges — where they play a role in the conversation as much as recruiters and interviewers do. How can you enable this?

Begin Important Conversations Early

39% of candidates say they want candid conversations on job compensation from the start. Begin critical, decision-making discussions — things like compensation, work schedule, and specific expectations — early in the hiring funnel, not the end. Then, weave the same transparency into your company culture.

Don’t Underestimate Responsiveness

In a 2020 study, 63% of candidates report that most recruiters do not effectively communicate. In remote hiring, it’s more important than ever to keep the lines of communication open. Especially when the talent market is moving at the speed it is now. Candidates want clear and frequent interaction — so check in regularly, give them the information they need, and take the time to make them feel valued. 

Leverage Digital Tools

The only way to keep up with candidate expectations and remain competitive in this job market is by leveraging hiring automation. With an automated hiring solution, candidates can schedule interviews on their time, eliminating the back-and-forth communication that slows down the hiring process. And with the best candidate experience technology in place, recruiters can focus on building genuine relationships with candidates, one of the most rewarding parts of their work. 

Advocate Well-being

Yes, remote productivity is high; but it comes with a price. 

Working from home took a major toll on health, with 40% of people saying it negatively affected work-life balance. People everywhere are experiencing burnout. As candidates begin to put their well-being first, they’re looking for employers who will encourage mental, physical, and emotional health. Beyond great communication, candidates want to see employers demonstrate their commitment to employee well-being.

Now is the time to show candidates that you have concrete policies to support them as their home and work lives collide. Make wellness a pivotal part of your hiring process and show candidates that you’re dedicated to helping them thrive, both in work and in life.

Offer Flexibility

For many, the distance economy provided the unique ability to balance work and personal life — if done right. Now that candidates know what’s possible, they expect future employers to continue to be agile. Whether it’s full company shutdowns to recharge, no meeting days, flex time, walking meetings, or coaching and mental health resources — candidates and employees are looking for support from their employers.

With 70% of people saying they want flexible work opportunities, offering a remote or hybrid interview process is the first step to proving that you care. Then, model that flexibility in your workplace.

Invest in Growth

During the height of the pandemic, offering security was the main goal. Now that we’ve moved past many of those fears, candidates are prioritizing their future. They want to find meaning in their work — and regular growth and development are part of that equation.

Create a learning culture, where growth opportunities are always present. And show candidates that you support their needs by outlining opportunities your company provides.

Share Company Culture

The isolation of the pandemic drove many to rethink what they value in company culture — and trendy perks are no longer it. Now, they want to be part of a place that gives them a fulfilling experience.

Demonstrate Transparency

With the isolation of remote work, 37% of people say they have a harder time trusting leaders. As people are meeting less in person and more online, lack of visibility is a big concern.

Candidates want to know that you’ll hear their needs — yes, even from afar — and that you are committed to creating transparent relationships between leaders and employees. Show them what you’ll do to create those relationships from the beginning, and how you ensure remote employees are visible for opportunities.

Give Them Space to Share Their Authentic Selves

People want to be a part of a company that reflects the things that matter to them. For talent leaders, giving candidates the space to share who they are and what’s important to them is critical. Then, create discussions around your company culture and your unique mission and values. 

Expand DEI Efforts

Three in four people say DEI continues to be a top priority — a topic that undoubtedly should be part of your candidate messaging. Many candidates will not consider a company that does not have a clear commitment to DEI. 

A commitment to DEI starts on your website, then continues through the interview stage and beyond. Ensure diversity in interview panels so your candidates feel like they belong from the start by using interviewer selection tools.

The Candidate Relationship Is the Way Forward

As the future of work is forever changed, and the distance economy becomes routine, one thing holds true — hiring leaders that prioritize the candidate relationship will have better hiring outcomes. It’s that simple, and there’s no way around it.

The best way to stand out from the talent competition? Create a standout candidate relationship by being transparent, and maintaining an authentic, empathetic hiring process.

2021 Wrap Up: Key Takeaways From Top Talent Leaders

Posted on by Rachel Heller
A talent leader using GoodTime.

Chief among the concerns of talent leaders in today’s hiring market is, of course, the growing talent shortage. 

With more jobs on the market than there are people looking for work, recruiters and employers are rightfully worried — so much so that most believe the shortage will negatively impact their business in the long run.

The best talent leaders are asking the right questions and rethinking their entire recruitment strategy. GoodTime recently sat down with several of them to discuss three of the hottest topics they face in this new world of work:

  1. Virtual recruitment and the hybrid workplace.
  2. Advancing diversity and equity within the interview process.
  3. Using data to make better hiring decisions.

What emerged from these discussions was an overwhelming agreement that the best hiring decisions start by understanding who candidates are and what they expect from their potential new employer. Here are five takeaways from each key area to help you navigate hiring. 

Virtual Recruitment and the Hybrid Workplace

  1. Competition for the most talented employees has skyrocketed since pre-pandemic times, with the average candidate interviewing at 4x the number of companies as they did before.
  2. The employer who’s first in line to make an offer to a candidate only has a 50% shot of having that offer accepted. And if you’re not first, that percentage goes down dramatically. 
  3. Companies are kicking hiring pipelines into high gear at 2.3x a higher rate to meet current hiring demands.
  4. 77% of employees want more flexibility to work when and where they want.
  5. Candidate searches for remote work have gone up by 460% since 2019.

Advancing DEI Within the Interview Process

  1. An overwhelming majority of job seekers — 70% — want to work for a company that prioritizes DEI.
  2. Failing to demonstrate a commitment to DEI during the interview stage, which lasts an average of five hours with your company for most candidates, is a huge missed opportunity.
  3. At least 63% of interviews do not represent women, which greatly reduces the likelihood that those candidates will accept an offer.
  4. Female candidates are 2x more likely to accept a job when a female interviewer is part of the panel.
  5. Emerging technology, like GoodTime’s Intelligent Interviewer Selection, gathers data and provides insights that continuously refine an inclusive interview process.

Using Data To Make Better Hiring Decisions

  1. Access to candidate data is imperative to understanding who candidates are and what they want.
  2. When there are five or more trained interviewers per role, candidates are 95% more likely to find an interview time that fits into their schedule.
  3. By empowering candidates to self-identify as members of a minority group, they can be matched to interviewers who represent shared commonalities.
  4. The majority of the talent leaders we spoke with emphasized the importance of leveraging data to get approval on spend for strategic hiring initiatives.
  5. Just as important as the interviewee experience is the interviewer experience. Leveraging technology to manage load balance guards against some interviewers carrying a disproportionate amount of the interview load.

The Bottom Line

When hiring teams have the tools they need to listen to candidates, effectively train interviewers, and assess the right data, better and faster hiring decisions are born.

GoodTime lets you do all of this and more.

4 Ways to Level up Your TA Ops for Remote Hiring

Posted on by Rachel Heller

Talk about disruptive. The global pandemic was so disruptive that now, less than two years after its onset, up to 40% of employees are considering quitting their jobs. Talent acquisition ops teams are forced to made a big pivot to remote hiring– and do it quickly.

Why? Anthony Klotz, management professor who coined the term “The Great Resignation,” believes the rise of remote and hybrid work opportunities forced many of us to reexamine our priorities. “How we spent our time before the pandemic may not be how we want to spend our time after,” says Klotz.  

Now that the dust seems to have settled and we continue moving forward, hiring teams are in a unique position to transform not only who employers hire, but how they hire.

If you’re looking for ways to scale your talent operations so that you can hire talent who wants to work for you in a post-pandemic world, here are four ways to ramp up your remote hiring efforts.

Focus On Inclusion

While calls for DEI aren’t new, we do seem to have crossed a new threshold toward progress. TA teams now experience firsthand job seekers’ unwillingness to accept anything less than employers that provide a sense of belonging. In fact, 70% of job seekers say a company’s D&I efforts are top of mind when looking for potential employers.

  What you can do: Begin by assessing your hiring process — from sourcing, to application, to interview — and creating action items for improvement. Invest in technology that mitigates unconscious biases, helps you build diverse teams, and measures DEI success.

Compete With Employer Brand

In a candidate-driven market, job seekers look for companies that will provide a great employee experience in exchange for their skills and talent — which makes a strong employer brand the secret weapon of today.

Your employer brand introduces candidates to the type of workplace they can expect. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate your vision, your mission, and your core values. A recent LinkedIn study showed that employers who invest in their employer brand see 50% more qualified candidates than those who don’t!

In today’s job market, employers who have been diligently nurturing a strong employer brand are winning the best candidates, and the ones who have neglected it are playing catch up. But it’s not too late.

What you can do: In a recent FlexJobs survey, 65% of respondents said they wanted to continue working remotely full-time. Now is the time to get remote recruiting right, so you can demonstrate your commitment to flexibility and attract the right people.

Reskill Current Employees

 The idea of reskilling has been a hot topic for years as technology continues to advance rapidly, making some 20th century industries obsolete. In 2018, the World Economic Forum even reported that 75 million jobs would be displaced by 2022, and that 133 new roles would be created in their place.

As skilled workers continue to leave industries severely impacted by the pandemic (like hospitality, retail, and healthcare), reskilling may be more critical than ever before.

To meet this challenge, companies need to invest in a culture of continuous learning; today’s employees not only want training and development — they expect it.

What you can do: To mitigate future disruptions, take a good look at your employees’ current skills. Identify gaps and define the competencies needed to close them. This will result in a proficient and adaptable workforce that can shift to market disruptions and industry demands.

Embrace Systems Made for Remote Hiring

One of the most notable changes for TA teams over the past year is the ability to hire from anywhere. For many, this was a transition that had never been attempted at such a large scale.

But the abrupt change from in-office to remote hiring provided talent acquisition a rare window of opportunity to accelerate the adoption of recruitment automation tools, and to keep up with candidates’ desires for more flexibility.

Virtual hiring is a complete game changer, giving candidates the flexibility to complete assessments and interviews—from anywhere. And for recruiters, the implementation of technology solutions can streamline the entire recruitment process and ensure a quicker time to hire.

With 70% of professionals saying that remote recruiting is the new normal, it’s time to level up and make sure you’re prepared to meet the needs of your candidates.

What you can do: Get noticed by amplifying your online presence and offering a virtual glimpse into your employee experience. Find online tools that automate repeatable processes — from sourcing to on-boarding—and speed up your time to hire.

Stay Ahead of the Game

Sustainable growth comes when hiring leaders are empowered to manage recruitment all in one place. GoodTime Hire provides one system that tracks all of your interviewers, ensuring each one can effectively evaluate candidates, and helping you scale interview training with ease.

Learn more about how Hire can supercharge your talent acquisition process today.

5 Ways to Make Remote Hiring Amazing

Posted on by Rachel Heller

It’s safe to say that remote hiring is here to stay, and it’s easy to see why. 97% of employees don’t want to go back to the office, and 61% prefer working remote. It’s no wonder that most professionals expect remote work to become the new standard. 

This ultimately means that remote hiring will remain a vital part of the recruitment process for some time to come. Remote hiring, however, brings several challenges that you’ll need to face to ensure you hire the right remote employee. 

So, what can you do to make remote hiring better? Let’s take a look. 

Look For the One 

Finding the right fit for your company is important for any job opening. It’s crucial that you craft your job listing to reflect this. This is even more important for remote jobs because you have to consider the specific remote working traits that a candidate must have. 

You also need to consider the time zone and location requirements of the job to make your workforce effective. By specifying these requirements in your job listing, you’ll narrow the talent pool and up your chances of finding the right candidate. 

Dig Deeper

Apart from the requisite skills and experience level you look for in any candidate, certain traits are crucial for a candidate to be successful at remote working. These, for example, include communication, collaboration, organization, and efficiency. 

Another thing you should consider is that remote employees should be comfortable with communicating through video and good with being on camera for collaborative meetings, simply because this will be your main mode of communication.  

When a candidate doesn’t have these qualities, they’ll probably be a bad fit for a remote position. So, absent these traits and skills, it’s not worth it to take the hiring process further.   

Use the Right Tools and Tech

For remote hiring, using the right technology is crucial. Whether it’s screening applications or conducting a remote interview, you need the right tools. 

Tech stack aside, for an optimal interview experience, you’ll need to ensure that each of your interviewers has a strong internet connection, good lighting, and the right video conferencing platform to conduct the interview as seamlessly as possible. 

Another reason for investing in the right technologies is that any tech fail will affect employer brand and make the company look bad. Apart from this, it will reduce the time your interviewers can spend with the candidate and result in a less-than-optimal candidate experience.  

More Than Three Is a Crowd

When it comes to the interview stage, you must fine-tune your strategy specifically for remote interviews. Your first step to do this would be to create a list of questions that effectively cover the candidate’s skills, experience, background, and personality.

If possible, you should also limit the number of interviewers on the interviewing team. Research shows that there are diminishing returns for each interviewer after a certain point. So, you should try to have no more than three interviewers present. 

Also, it’s a good idea to keep the interview structured and have each interviewer focus on one specific area, like skills, experience, personality, and so on. This will allow the team to get the information they need to make a decision.

Use Time Wisely

One of the most important things you should do when hiring remotely is to respect the candidate’s time. In fact, one of the most common issues candidates encounter during remote hiring, especially when it comes to the interview stage, is the amount of time wasted during the process. 

Whether it’s scheduling or the interview itself, you should implement the necessary tools and strategies to create an efficient and seamless hiring process. This greatly improves the candidate experience and makes you stand out from the crowd. 

The Bottom Line

Considering that remote hiring is here to stay, it’s crucial that you implement the necessary processes and strategies to improve your remote hiring efforts.

GoodTime Hire make remote recruiting effective, inclusive, and efficient. Hire transforms your company’s connections to candidates utilizing Candidate Relationship Intelligence to win the best talent.

Learn more about Hire today by scheduling a demo. 

Realities and Challenges for Talent Acquisition in a Post-COVID World

Posted on by Rachel Heller

Let’s face it, remote work is here to stay. It not only changes how companies and employees work, but also promises to have a significant impact on talent acquisition.

And it’s easy to see why. During the past year, in the throes of the pandemic, many employees reconsidered how they spent their time and revisited their values. 

As a result, many high-quality job candidates are now welcoming the opportunity to work from anywhere. This is in stark contrast to the past when they wouldn’t even have considered remote work as an option. For this reason, some say that 2021 will be a year of massive job turnover.

So, to bag the best talent, hiring leaders will need to up their hiring game to create best-in-class remote candidate experiences.

There are, however, certain challenges and realities they must face and deal with in the coming years. Let’s look at these realities and challenges in more detail.

Reality: Talent Will Be Increasingly Distributed

As a result of the pandemic, many employees will want to be closer to home, family, friends, or parents. The coming years will thus lead to a greater geographic redistribution of a company’s workforce. And central to this will be remote working. 

This presents a significant challenge for companies. They need to consider compensation for a distributed workforce or what equitable compensation looks like for a remote workforce. They’ll also have to implement the necessary systems and strategies for better capacity planning, improving company culture, using technology, and ensuring employee visibility.

Challenge: Workforce Liquidity Will Be Key

Companies will increasingly need to move away from static jobs in siloed departments. They’ll have to be liquid enough to shift employees to new departments and projects as their business needs change. This ability will allow them to adapt quicker to changes in times of uncertainty and volatility.

This will also have a significant impact on hiring. Here, recruiters will need to focus more on job candidates’ potential and transferable skills. So, candidates’ employment or educational history and their capability to do certain jobs will be shifted to the back burner. 

Challenge: Blended Workforces Are a Possibility

To achieve the agility and flexibility needed in these uncertain times, many companies will shift to blended workforces. In other words, they’ll focus on having a mix of permanent workers and contract workers. 

This gives companies the ability to fill skills gaps as and when they happen without the necessary capital outlay of hiring permanently. As a result, they’ll be able to focus on cash preservation at times when cash flow is at a premium. 

Reality: Diverse Talent Acquisition Is Key

During the pandemic, many companies pledged their support for greater diversity. Because remote work will expand the available talent pool, companies will now have access to traditionally underrepresented groups which will make this possible.

Recruiters will therefore be able to build diverse pipelines of candidates and advocate for them to be moved through the funnel. Recruiters will also play a crucial role in restructuring hiring processes to give effect to companies’ diversity goals. 

Reality: Virtual Talent Acquisition Is the New Normal

Many companies embraced virtual recruitment during the pandemic and will continue to do so. As such, for companies wanting to hire the best talent in the coming years, virtual recruitment will be vital.

Fortunately, talent acquisition software can automate many recruitment processes, making them more efficient and streamlined. One technology that can bring about further improvements in the process, is artificial intelligence (AI).

It can help companies place job ads, screen resumes, and schedule interviews. This could end up saving companies time, money, and resources and makes it the must-have recruitment tool for the coming years.

The Bottom Line

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on talent acquisition and will reshape these processes in a post-COVID world. As such, it will determine who companies hire, how they hire, and what tools they use in the process.

For this reason, companies need to implement the necessary systems and tools that will enable them to adapt to this “new normal” and ensure they’re still able to hire the best talent. 

It’s time for candidate-centered, connection-driven interviews.

To read more about how to make that happen for your team, download 5 Steps to Hiring Top Talent at Scale.