Recruitment in the post-corona era: 4 tips to prepare for a new job market

The corona crisis has abruptly ended the overstrained labor market in recent years. Reorganizations and shifts between sectors ensure that the candidate pool expands again.

And with today's HR technology, recruiters can already get an edge over the new recruiting in the post-corona era. How? Our partner Michiel van Asbeck of Rvdb gives 4 tips for hunting the 'new candidate'.

Although the NOW schemes have prevented mass unemployment, the supply of job seekers will increase significantly. As with any crisis, jobs are cut and workers are laid off on a large scale. In this crisis, that probably happens when NOW 3 ends.

What does that mean for recruitment? Some developments from the corona era such as working from home will remain. Others such as digitization of business processes will grow even more.

Certain sectors such as healthcare, engineering, and IT will face such large shortages that a change in candidate assessment will be needed. It will be less based on the resume, and more on skills, character, and willingness to embark on a new adventure. A new recruitment world awaits.

Coronavirus puts an end to the overstrained labor market

According to CBS chief economist Piet Hein van Mulligen, 322,000 jobs are fewer in the second quarter of this year than a quarter earlier. This has brought job growth over the past two years to an end.

Due to the decrease in the number of open vacancies and the increasing number of unemployed, the tension in the labor market decreased to 57 vacancies per 100 unemployed in the second quarter. A quarter earlier there were 81.

Recruitment stops due to coronavirus

More than half of companies in the Netherlands have stopped recruitment to save costs. This is according to research by Willis Towers Watson among executives and HR officials at companies employing a total of 2 million employees.

51% of organizations surveyed have completely halted recruitment efforts for the remainder of 2020, while 60% have so far postponed recruitment activities. 20% of organizations also expect to take such steps. Half have indicated that in the future – in the early post-corona era ahead – they will structurally scale back their recruitment.

What does the recruitment world look like after the coronavirus crisis?

HR professionals are facing new developments that affect the current view of recruitment.

Increase in job seekers

When consumer confidence increases again, organizations will slowly but surely take on employees. This will gradually lift the job market, and hopefully it will not go back to the old normal with an overstrained labor market like before the pandemic. Due to the decline in jobs, it will even normalize.

Where there are subsidy measures in place, it still paints a distorted picture in this regard and keeps unemployment rates artificially low. But that does not alter the fact that companies are already busy with major reorganizations in anticipation of the end of NOW 3 as of July 1, 2021.

Pressure on the HR department

It will therefore not be long before the number of job seekers increases. In most sectors, there will be more candidate choices for recruiters again.

Where previously they had to struggle to get candidates, they can soon expect an influx of applicants. The other side of the coin is that there is a lot of work involved in reviewing and evaluating the applications.

Recruitment departments – probably already slimmed down anyway – will have to come up with a plan to prevent the many applications from being handled manually, causing unprecedented pressure on the department.

Shift sectors

No one can determine for sure how long the virus will be among us. Even if a vaccine goes into production, it will still take a while before the world will be corona-free.

For the labor market, this means that in the short term, a shift will be necessary from employees in affected sectors to jobs in sectors where there is a large shortage of staff.

Retraining employees on a large scale from, for example, the catering industry to healthcare or ICT is now not possible, according to employers, experts, and branch associations in 'short sectors'.

A new take on candidate review

Still, it will be necessary to anticipate this shift in the labor market.

For example, healthcare, energy, artificial intelligence, and robotization are sectors where structural shortages are at risk. A wider range of job seekers will be available for these sectors. To make use of that, HR managers will have to assess applicants in a new way.

This will be less focused on training and qualifications and more based on skills and competencies. In the long term, those who have not been in work for a long time will also have to be taken into account.

These 'scarring' effects will still be noticeable until about five years later and also occur in people who graduate during the recession.

Adapting to the new recruitment market

What does the post-coronavirus era mean to the HR professional? You can already respond and adapt to these trends, as shown below.

Working from home/hybrid working

One of the great discoveries during the corona crisis is working from home. According to research by Intermediair and Nationale Vacaturebank, most employees are very enthusiastic about this.

No travel time, better productivity, and more work/life balance are the most frequently mentioned advantages. Organizations are expected to offer full or partial work from home – as far as possible.

According to the researchers, offices will be more set up according to the principle of 'activity-based working'. In addition, office spaces will be classified on the basis of activities.

The 'remote company' may be a blessing for employees, but recruiters will still see considerable challenges in it.

Shortage of staff

Athought the pandemic has brought doom and gloom to the labor market, there are some sectors where vacancies have risen sharply.

The top three roles where this is evident are for PLC programmers (+126%), machine builders (+115%), and mechanical engineers (+44%). These vacancies have a specific and scarce profile according to Flex News.

New skills

The post-coronavirus era will bring with it a new way of recruiting. Less and less emphasis will be on experience and education. Instead, it will focus increasingly on adaptability and willingness to acquire and implement transferable skills.

Employees will have to learn new skills and think from different perspectives. This flexibility becomes an important trait that needs to be discovered early in the recruitment process.

Automating recruitment

Research by Hershbein and Kahn shows that companies are more likely to automate processes during economic crises.

Cost savings in staff and time are the main reasons for this. The same goes for the recruitment process. For example, talent assessment tools like those offered by TestGorilla will become the new standard to efficiently select applicants from a wide candidate pool.

Tips on how to prepare for the post-corona labor market

How will your organization cope when recruitment starts again? Here are four tips to prepare your HR department for recruitment after the corona crisis.

1. Determine the consequences for your organization

With the new way of working in sight, you must look at the design of your organization. All in all, every organization will become a kind of start-up that has to reinvent the wheel.

Shifts in the business structure, therefore, seem inevitable. Based on these questions, you can determine how your organization can adapt to the new way of recruiting:

• Are we going back to work in the office or will we continue working from home or a combination of them?

• Are we moving on to recruitment at different locations?

• What changes will we see in policy?

• Do we adjust employment conditions?

• How can we show appreciation?

• Will wages change?

• What does the new situation mean for our referral recruitment program?

Answers to these questions can help determine a strategy for your new recruitment activities in the post-corona era.

2. Strengthen the position of your organization

Based on answers from the first tips, you can see what impression your organization makes on job seekers and how you can possibly adjust it.

For example, candidates who have just been laid off will look forward to a caring, compassionate employer who brings stability to their lives. Other candidates will be looking for a flexible organization that goes with the times. Even before you start recruiting, you can strengthen your 'employer brand' based on these points:

• Communicate clearly about the values of your organization

• Make sure you describe features to match the new situation

• Show clearly what it's like to work with you on your job page

• See if you can strengthen your employer branding strategy on social media

• Ask current employees if your vacancies match the new employee experience

• Publish about measures your organization is taking for the new working model

A period of job top such as the corona crisis is an ideal time to take a closer look at the story of your organization and implement new views. Then you can be sure that the organization fits well with current expectations of candidates.

Tip 3 – Determine your ideal candidate

You can do everything you can to be the ideal organization for candidates. The other way around, of course, also applies. Which candidates best align with the new work model? For example, if remote work becomes an important adjustment, you will have to select for new skills such as:

Adaptability – Processes and roles in teams will change, newcomers will have to adapt to them

Communicating online – Employees need to be able to handle email, video calling and chat well to work remotely

Problem Solving Ability – If supervision is not physically present, employees will have to make their own decisions to solve problems. This requires qualities such as initiative, self-motivation and a certain degree of guts. Conversely, the organization must also provide the space to showcase these traits.

The art of finding the 'new candidate' will mainly be in creating a clear picture of the new way of working and what role candidates play in it. If you are already updating employee profiles, you can take a significant edge over the competition when recruitment takes off again.

Tip 4 – Modernize Your Recruitment Technology

Now is the time to make an efficiency move. What technological means can you use to make recruitment after the corona crisis as effective as possible? Due to the expected influx of employees, it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff as soon as possible and to recognize valuable candidates just as quickly.

We distinguish two types of recruitment technologies that make the life of the HR professional much easier.

The first is the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that allows you to manage the recruitment process and candidate flow. Chances are you're already working with that. According to Jobscan research, 98% of Fortune 500 companies work with such a recruitment system.

The second is a candidate screening tool. Not only do you use these to cope with a large number of applications, you can also use it as an assessment for specific skills. For example, with TestGorilla you can combine 7 ways to select in a pre-employment assessment:

• Cognitive skills

• Personality and business cultural addition

• Mastery of languages

• Role-specific skills

• Programming skills

• Software skills

Selecting candidates based on both technical and soft skills and personality traits will become the new norm. Especially with large amounts of applications, immediately applicable, validated tests will make the work of HR professionals significantly more efficient. For example, if you recruit internationally, a preselection on language skills such as English or Portuguese can save you a lot of time.

The tools also help you recruit better on soft values such as cognitive skills. That allows you to quickly find candidates with excellent problem-solving skills or high-level reading skills between all applications.

Or when you want to know if a candidate fits the company culture. Then you can test for things like the values of the organization, role-specific characteristics and interests. Regardless of working from home or in the office, you will soon know if the candidate is a valuable addition to the team.

Once you have drawn up the ideal candidate profile, you can immediately start a preselection assessments. This allows you to see whether your way of selecting meets the new recruitment world after corona.

Ready for recruitment in the post-corona era?

Although the prospects are not yet flourishing at the moment, one thing is certain: sooner or later we will get out of the corona crisis. Then economies flourish again, consumers regain confidence and companies get back to work. Many experiences we gained during the crisis will prove structural and lay the foundation for a new working model. New employees will have to connect to that, which also requires a new view of recruitment. That, plus a growing number of job seekers due to reorganizations, doesn't exactly make an HR manager's life easier. Yet recruiters can already respond to these busy times. Because current technological means offer plenty of opportunities to already take an edge over competition in the post-corona era. When the weather is business as usual.

Want to know more about the use of HR technology?

Please contact Michiel van Asbeck, director of Rvdb. In an exploratory conversation you will discover the possibilities and benefits of preselection testing.