After a sharp slowdown in mid-2020, the HR industry is emerging from the crisis around the world. Recruitment rate has partially recovered, but the pandemic has created new trends in job seekers’ preferences and solidified the status of online recruiting. Let us see whether remote hiring is really useful and whether the claims of those who still prefer a face-to-face meeting are justified.
Hiring new employees through the introduction of new technologies and the gradual digitalization of society has changed beyond recognition over the past few years. Hunting on social media, video interviews, virtual job fairs, and remote document sharing have simplified HR processes to a few clicks. However, there are still industries in which the penetration of new technologies is slower and managers prefer traditional hiring.
Pandemic strengthens online recruiting trend
According to a BBC survey, back in 2019, 91% of employers preferred face-to-face communication over video interviews, and among employees, 45% were unhappy to communicate online. However, according to an ISE survey, at the end of 2019, almost half of the managers have already used the possibilities of video interviews for selecting candidates, including largest retail companies, FMCG giants and restaurant chains.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, many largest companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft have switched all HR processes to online. Following them, others turned to remote hiring, and by the end of the Q1 2020, 86% of HR leaders surveyed by Gartner used video interviews in communication with candidates.
How is the recruitment industry recovering and what it means for the market?
Does this mean that online hiring has already replaced traditional one? Far from it! It had been found that even a digital-native business cannot completely abandon the face-to-face communication with candidates, let alone such areas as industry, tourism or the restaurant business.
While there was an explosive growth in online interviews during the pandemic, a huge number of companies revised or froze their expansion plans. According to Gartner, last April, 54% of managers stopped looking for new talents for several months. The exceptions were critical positions. In addition, 63% of respondents said they have frozen more than half of the vacancies in their companies.
Most likely, we can talk about the industries most affected by the coronavirus: tourism, restaurant and hotel business, catering and manufacturing. However, it was generally unusual for them to use new technologies in HR. This is also indicated by Indeed’s survey of Indian entrepreneurs: managers prefer only face-to-face recruiting methods in the areas of construction and real estate (98%), manufacturing (97%), agriculture (95%) and retail trade (93%).
Markets are now gradually recovering, although not fully. The ManpowerGroup’s latest global employment forecast study found that hiring plans of employers improved in 32 of 43 countries from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021. According to CareerArc, 76% of US companies surveyed expect HR processes to be restored this year.
Why is it too early to give up offline recruiting?
There is a lot of talk about the benefits of online recruiting, but it’s too early to give up traditional communication with candidates for two reasons:
- Older generations may be excluded from the pool of candidates. Gen X workers (born in 1965 – 1979) and baby boomers (born in 1946 – 1964) still prefer offline interviews. They are less adaptable to new technologies, but still occupy a significant share of the labor market.
- Online hiring hinders the search for qualified personnel due to the number of applications. Unfortunately, the resources of the HR specialist are limited. Wasting a lot of time on processing a large number of applications, they may miss passive but exceptionally talented candidates. The iHire study shows that the majority of employers (77%) have difficulty in finding qualified professionals: 39% of employers considered unqualified or irrelevant candidates the main issue of recruiting through websites and social media.
Online hiring in numbers
According to a LinkedIn survey, 81% of HR professionals believe that the increased demand for online recruiting during the pandemic will continue in the future, and 70% define the transition to online hiring as a new standard. Its main advantages are in making the hiring process cheaper and easier, as well as reducing “unconscious bias” towards candidates.
- Complicated recruitment processes and multiple interview stages can scare candidates away. SHRM has estimated that 60% of job seekers lose contact with an HR professional due to a long, complex and unclear recruiting process.
- For some companies, online recruiting through recorded interviews reduces candidate bias. This was stated by every fifth Indeed survey participant.
- Online hiring bridges the geographical gap. This is especially relevant for small online businesses and startups.
The online recruiting market will indeed grow. Technavio predicts the average annual growth rate of online recruiting in the US market from 2020 to 2024 will be 7%, and by 2024 online recruiting will already occupy 79% of the recruiting market. The experience of US companies shows that online recruiting will affect even areas that are accustomed to traditional recruiting.
What’s the bottom line?
Recruiting is just the tip of the iceberg in the development of telecommuting, and the pandemic forced literally everyone to adapt to run things remotely. Video conferencing platforms, corporate messengers and other services have pervaded in the lives of business leaders, freelancers and ordinary employees.
However, the development approach of the services has also changed. In the new reality, they try to cover all the needs of users to the maximum by getting new features. This happens with both the giants like Google and Facebook and small companies like Postoplan, the social media cross-posting service that combines the capabilities of different applications in one interface.
