State of Hiring
Insights and trends from over 2,000 employers and candidates to get a clear picture of what hiring looks like today.
Gone are the days of stuffy cubicle walls and long commutes. The ability for employees to work remotely was once considered a perkâright up there with free food, ping pong tables, and unlimited vacationâoffered only by the hippest tech companies in a bid to attract top talent. But with 74 percent of organizations planning to make remote work permanent, remote working is no longer the exceptionâitâs the expectation.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the future of work and has changed many aspects of everyday life, including how and where we work. Even for organizations that plan to returnâor have already returnedâto in-office operations, the pandemic has permanently altered candidate expectations for the interview process.
Unfortunately, many organizationsâ recruiting and talent acquisition processes are still catching up to this new reality.
The need for HR leaders to develop effective modern interviewing strategies has never been more obvious or urgent. To hire the best talentâand ensure youâre putting the right people in the right rolesâthe same old approach to interviewing just wonât cut it.
Instead of clinging to outdated interview practices that donât work or, even worse, drive candidates away in the new era of remote recruiting, organizations need to adjust their interviewing strategies to the actual needs of a virtual workforce. When hiring remotely, here are five common interviewing mistakes that can torpedo the candidate experience and cost you the ideal candidate:
Ask a room full of senior leaders how many of them have received training on how to conduct great interviews over the course of their careers, and not many hands will go up.
HR and talent acquisition leaders often assume hiring managers have the interviewing skills to identify and hire the best qualified candidate, but thatâs not necessarily the case. Hiring managers often have little or no training in interviewing but are tasked with making hiring decisions based on a one-hour conversation. Conducting a great interview is an art form that needs to be mastered with training and practice.
From applicant tracking systems (ATS) to candidate relationship management (CRM) software and everything in between, there is no shortage of recruiting tools and technologies promising to improve your hiring process.
The bells and whistles of that new recruiting tool might look good now, but if it doesn’t integrate well with your existing recruiting technologies, itâs going to cause more headaches than itâs worth. Any new recruiting or interviewing technology should make your hiring processes easier, not more complicated. When the tools in your talent acquisition tech stack operate in silos, it can lead to slow, inefficient hiring processes that are frustrating for the candidate and costly for employers.
Sourcing candidates is a vital part of the recruiting processâbut itâs not what recruiters should be spending all their time on. Unfortunately, nearly half of recruiters say they spend most of their work weekâat least 30 hoursâon sourcing alone. That doesnât leave recruiters much time for the other critical aspects of the hiring process, like building meaningful relationships with top candidates or training hiring teams to be great interviewers.
If talent acquisition teams focus all of their time filling the top of the funnel, they canât give the interview experience the attention it requires. When sourcing is a time-consuming and tedious process, requisitions stay open longer and hiring teams run the risk of making poor hiring decisions. And not hiring the right person for the job the first time around only brings you back to the start of the vicious cycle.
Humans are instinctive creatures. While our instincts have protected us from the likes of woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers (+1 for evolution!), relying on them when interviewing can lead to poor hires and discriminatory hiring practices.
Because our brains are wired to make very fast judgments about people, interviewers often unwittingly form an immediate opinion about a candidate. Itâs natural to gravitate toward people with whom you instantly connect, but relying too much on gut instinct in the hiring process allows unconscious biasâalso known as implicit biasâto seep in and influence hiring decisions. Itâs why, according to one study, 93 percent of companies recognize the need to reduce bias in their talent acquisition process.
HR and talent acquisition teams often assume that in todayâs day and age, we all know what not to ask during an interview. But a CareerBuilder survey found that 20 percent of hiring managers have asked a question in a job interview only to find out later that it was illegal to ask. Yikes.
Laws regarding job interview questions vary by state and it’s important that every member of the interview team understands what they canât ask during an interview. Itâs not that hiring interviewers purposely ask illegal questions; itâs that these questionsâto an untrained interviewerâcan feel just like an innocent, natural part of conversation.
Great interviews matterâa lot. Your interview process speaks volumes about your company and who you are as a potential employer. A fair, equitable, and consistent interview process is key to hiring the best-fit candidates, building a more diverse workforce, and delivering the candidate experience todayâs job seekers expect. With an intentional, well-designed interviewing strategy backed by intelligent video interviewing technology, recruiters and hiring teams can deliver impactful interview experiences that lead to the right hire, every time.