7 Smart Things a Recruiter Can Do When Hiring Freezes

COVID-19 has engulfed the world and brought it down to its knees. It has toppled economies, people have lost jobs, and most businesses have either dialed down their operations or completely shut shop.

You see, the world of recruiters has always been in a constant state of flux. They continuously oscillate between up and down-cycles. Regardless of the scale of recession, or when it hits, recruiters need to be prepared.

If you’re just starting out as a recruiter or have been in the game for long, you need to realize that economy sinkers just like the novel coronavirus are winding up to spring into action in the coming months, years, decades…who knows?

Whether you in the midst of a catastrophe that has led to companies abandoning or subsiding hiring plans (like how we find ourselves now), or know for sure that more will happen in the future, you can, as a recruiter, take steps to ensure that you are equipped to handle the downturn, build a pipeline, explode out-of-the-box as soon as the situation improves, and make your company adaptable and recession-ready.

And here’s how you can go about that.

1. Leverage Social Media Channels

Social media has been an ever-popular amongst recruiters when it comes to finding talent. In fact, many believe that at least half of the top talent comes from social media one way or the other. And it is one of the top 5 trends followed by recruiters in India.

But have you leveraged it?

If not then the time is now. Start with ideas for the content that you want to share on social media platforms. You have to be picky here as not all platforms will suit your business. Communicate the prospects of a career at your company with potential recruits and have a communication plan in place for positions that might open up in the future.

2. ATS a headache? Fix it.

So, how good is your application procedure?

Do you also feel that you’re not getting enough application even though you have everything in place? The problem can be the Applicant Tracking System or ATS as some call it.

The recruitment experience that you provide to a candidate who’s applying to a job role has to be flawless: quick, smooth, informative, and responsive. Same goes for the recruiter, you must be able to compile and present information and be able to communicate with the candidates quickly.

Now that you have the time, find out why your ATS is complicated. Test it out to identify and fix any bugs.

3. Better descriptions

You get the type of candidate you’re looking for only if you write excellent job descriptions. You need to stick to a format like you always have been doing.

Rather, have a set of job descriptions ready for many job roles that you have at your company. You must be able to summarize it, prepare an outline of the benefits on offer, amongst other things within a set word limit.

4. 4 The importance of employer branding

Get the brand story right and you can get any talent you want — not entirely correct.

Employer branding is important as it puts your company goals, achievements, and vision on display for the world to see. Or rather, for the talented candidates to buy your idea and join up. Now, most create half-baked branding strategies, inject money in their marketing plans, and wait patiently for candidates to come running.

That’s not going to happen. You must understand that coming up with strategies for employer branding and the importance of employee advocacy for the same is needed if you want to go down this road.

5. Keeping employees in the loop

There are plenty of losses that an employer has to bear. You may be all too familiar with the cost of hiring the wrong employee, but there is yet another — cost of losing an employee during a recession or a hiring freeze.

You cannot blame the employee either. In disasters, when the economy crashes, and the world’s markets plummet, employees begin to think if they’re immune to loss of employment. They wonder if they should move on and stick with some company who can ensure employability. And if they do, it can result in severe losses — not only does work being handed by the exiting employee come to a halt, but you must again reinvest your time and funds to find a suitable replacement.

This is where your HR department and data will help. The data from the surveys collected during employee exits and turnovers will be able to tell you why employees are quitting, giving you and the HR a fair idea of what should be your next step to avoid it. Moreover, the turnover data will help you forecast the state of departments that need your most attention.

6. Bring automation into the picture

The role of technology in giving recruitment a much-needed facelift as compared to yesteryears has been quintessential. You’re able to reach out to candidates faster, relaying information about the entire recruitment process from the job description to onboarding.

But technology, as we know it, can be an expensive affair. More so when you hire someone to utilize an expensive recruitment tool that isn’t needed at all or needs an upgrade. This is where you go back to your drawing board, evaluate the tools at your disposal, and find out if you do use all of what they offer.

If no, cut back on such tools or have it upgraded so that they carry out functions that you need the most. By doing this you can significantly lower the costs. And to sweeten this deal, you can take a step further and invest in automated, AI-powered tech that requires little to no human intervention — many recruiters have done this and swear by the benefits.

7. Reskill and/or upskill

There are plenty of ways to reskill/upskill yourself in today’s day and age. And even the busiest of individuals take time out of their schedules to learn something new. At the same time, there are many who say that they don’t get the time even if they want to.

Well, now is as good a time as any. Your responsibilities are limited which will give you ample opportunities and time to complete a course or re-engineer yourself. By doing this, you will be able to help your employer and the HR depart more than ever. Besides, you will add something new to your own resume, not to forget, the knowledge that will never diminish nor falter even in the light of disasters of any magnitude.