FINDING THE RIGHT TALENT – The Zoom Era

     In many organizations selecting and onboarding suitable candidates for the organization is a key responsibility of the HR department. Said that HR department plays a crucial role in each organization by attracting qualified candidates for a job role and identifying and selecting the right candidate for the job. The below figure 1 is adapted from the global recruiting trends report which was published by LinkedIn based on the survey responses of nearly 4,000 corporate talent acquisition leaders across 35 countries (Global recruiting trends, 2017). 

Figure 1. Expected hiring volume changes over the years from 2012-2016 (Global recruiting trends, 2017) 

This report identifies the top three sources to obtaining quality talent was by (Global recruiting trends, 2017): 

1. 48% by employee referrals
2. 46% by third-party website or online job boards
3. 40% by social professional networks

Theories in Human Resource Management (HRM): Recruitment

        The following figure 2 shows the relationships between organizational and HRM strategies, plans and functions, and highlights the centrality of recruitment and selection in the overall HRM framework.

Figure 2. Recruitment as a strategic HRM tool (Nankervis, 2011)

        There are two important concepts in strategic HRM. That is horizontal and vertical alignment. By horizontal alignment it refers to the need for human resource professionals to ensure that all human resource management functions such as job design, recruitment and selection, employee development, performance management, remuneration, cost-cutting, etc) are linked to each other and to the organization’s goals. On the other hand, vertical alignment refers to the alignment of HRM practices with the strategic performance goals of the organization (Compton, 2010).

What are the employers looking for?

        According to Gary Vaynerchuk, the chairman of VaynerX ,and the CEO of Vayner Media,  a modern-day media and communications holding company once said in one of his vlogs that currently he is only interested of soft skills, than hard skills of a candidate. He also states, “Hire fast, fire faster, promote fastest.” He notes that when he hires, he is guessing but when he fires and promotes, he knows (Vaynerchuk, 2022).  There is a management proverb, “Hire slowly, fire fast.” It says that you need to take due care in selecting team members and you need to act quickly when your instinct says somebody isn’t the right person. But according to Mark Suster, a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners only half of this is true in terms of start ups. He states "You never really going to know how somebody is going to perform in the role, how good of a cultural fit he or she is going to be and how motivated they’re going to become until they’re on the inside." (Suster, 2011)

Changes in recruitment process: Pros and cons 

        Due to the pandemic situation the recruitment process has changed from traditional one-or-one interviews to zoom interviews. The bright side of the online interviews help organizations to reach out to a much wider talent pool and be much cost effective.

Figure 3. The future: Online meetings and interviews by Zoom

        While the interviews were conducted over zoom, it seemed that still time wise recruiters spent weeks to find the right candidate. Being online didn’t speed up the process, instead in my personal experience I saw it was dragging for weeks due to several rounds of interviews, and high volume of prospective candidates. In fact, there is a huge time spent in aligning schedules and setting up a Zoom room.

The next level of recruitment: Asynchronous interviews 

        Many recruiters see asynchronous interviews as a solution to this dilemma (Consult Energy, 2022). In an asynchronous interview, a candidate self-records a video responding to a set list of questions. This will help to filter prospective candidates in a faster manner.

What works: Personal experience

• Professionalism - Many candidates don’t seem to take video interviews seriously. You should treat online interview with the same regard as an in-person interview by dressing smartly and looking presentable. 

• Preparedness - I came across many candidates didn’t have a proper setting (a quiet room with no interruptions or distractions) during their interviews.  This will all say a lot about the candidate’s enthusiasm to impress the employer and the seriousness of the candidate. 

• Punctuality - Join 5-10 minutes early to the interview to check that all you microphones and internet is working

• Turn on the Camera - This is very important to create a good impression 

• Background study - Be prepared and do research about the company and the job role

Conclusion

        In my point of view technology is advancing and people should adapt to the newest technology in the world, so as the HR professionals too. They should carefully understand when to use video interviews and when to use live-online interviews to maximize their efficiency in hiring process. Also, which question to be asked at which place. For example, some interview questions work much better in a live-online interview. For example, let’s say you want a marketing candidate to tell you about the most successful campaign they’ve run. This type of question gives you the chance to ask follow-ups and dig deeper into the candidate’s strategy and tactics, so that type of a question is better to ask in a live-online interview. 

Not every hire is the right hire and not every job is the right job, but accepting a bad decision is wrong-for everyone involved (Jamail, 2019). 

How comfortable are you in making decisions, do you have these qualities to be a successful recruiter and admit your mistakes and correct it? 

References:

1. Survey report by LinkedIn, Global recruiting trends, 2017. Accessed online  

https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/talent-solutions/resources/pdfs/linkedin-global-recruiting-trends-report.pdf [3/19/2022] 

2. Garry Vaynerchezk, Vlog, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bN4YGpuFGY

Accessed online [3/18/2022]

3. Mark Suster, (2011), Startup Mantra: Hire Fast, Fire Fast, Tech crunch+, Available at:https://techcrunch.com/2011/05/26/startup-mantra-hire-fast-fire-fast/ Accessed online [3/18/2022]

4. Video Interviewing: Finding the Right Hire in the Zoom Age, Consult Energy, 2022

Accessed online https://www.consultenergyusa.com/article/video-interviewing-finding-the-right-hire-in-the-zoom-age [3/19/2022]

5. Nankervis, A, Compton, R, Baird, M, Coffey, J, 2011, Human resource management: strategies and processes, 7th edn, Cengage, Melbourne, p 34.

6. Compton, R., Morrissey, W., Nankervis, A., (2010) 5th Edition, Effective Recruitment and Selection Practices, McPherson's Printing Group, pp 1-15

7. JAMAIL, N. 2019. Hire Fast, Fire Faster. Hire Fast, Fire Faster.

Accessed online  https://www.amanet.org/articles/hire-fast-fire-faster/ [3/18/2022 2022].