The pandemic has laid a significant impact on the recruitment industry, obstructing the execution of the natural flow of recruitment strategy due to numerous lockdowns and quarantine periods that occurred all over the world in different periods. After the drastic dip in 2020, the recruitment industry has the opportunity to make a difference in 2021 with the correct recruitment strategies in their pocket.

Technological Adaptation and Use of AI

As most companies have shifted to remote working, there is essential recruitment of adapting suitable technologies to aid the remote working situation. The recruitment industry is no exception. The days of face-to-face interviews are gone. Most recruitment are automated with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital interviews.

68% of recruiting professionals say that the best way to improve recruiting performance over the next 5 years is by investing in new recruiting technology. Therefore, if you are preparing an effective recruitment strategy for 2021 to tackle the emerging challenges, you must consider investing in technologies.

Greater Emphasis on DEI

In 2020, DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has come up as an eminent challenge to the recruitment industry. Therefore, diversifying your workforce at the ground level, i.e., during the recruitment process, is essential for the growth of your business. Moreover, a report by Glassdoor states, 67% of job seekers said a diverse workforce is important when considering job offers. Therefore, if you are in the business of talent acquisition, the only way to upskill your recruitment strategy is to consider equality and equity through greater emphasis on diversity in the workforce.

Focus on Relationship

COVID19 has shown every industry a more significant number of lay-offs and salary deduction to manage the situation for the organizations. Most job seekers are looking for employers who can handle such a situation with more compassion. Therefore, the recruitment strategy for 2021 requires a greater focus on the empathetic approach of recruiters enhancing the company-employee relationship.

One of the best ways to attract the top tier talents to your organization is to ensure that you have an excellent employee-employer relationship within the organization, making it a better place for working.

Branding as Employer

As of the current situation, there is greater social media recruitment than traditional recruitment sources. Introducing yourself as a good employer has never been so important earlier, but employer branding is the most crucial recruitment strategy today.

Social media platforms like LinkedIn have become an eminent part of recruitment now. Therefore, the recruitment strategy for 2021 revolves around creating an employer brand for your company. You can build several strategies that require engagement, reflects your employee retention facts, and has a greater emphasis on good candidate experience.

Skill gap and how to fix it

Skill gap refers to the requirement of the right set of skills that are not being fulfilled by the employees. Formulation of recruitment strategies usually involves assessing if there are any skill or talent gaps within the company. If yes, is it a temporary or permanent skill gap? This leads to another vital question, i.e., can this skill gap be overcome by upskilling, or does it require new recruitment.

Upskilling can be a good option if the recruitment or talent acquisition is more costly. However, if the upskilling requires a longer time, say more than 3 to 6 months, to fill up the skill gap, the wisest way out is recruiting a new employee who has those skills. In case of a temporary skill gap, you may hire a freelancer to complete the job within a contract period.

Onboarding Experience

In most companies, new employees undergo an orientation program to acquaint them with the culture and working environment of the company. But as most companies have moved to remote working, new recruitment strategies are required to enhance the onboarding experience of the new employees. It is an essential area of focus, as this serves as a basis of talent retention. According to a recent survey conducted by well-known consulting firms, companies lose 25% of all new employees within a year.

During the recruitment process, it is essential to understand the candidate’s expectation and ability to adapt as these two factors do play a significant role when it comes to candidate experience. If you are still curious why we have emphasized candidate experience, again and again, let the survey answer you. According to a recent study, 72% of job seekers who had a bad experience told others about it online or in-person. When this happens to your company, you can hardly find any top tier talent coming to you for a job. The only way to avoid such a situation is to ensure precise and exemplary communication of recruiters to job seekers.

The Bottom Line

Even though there was an unprecedented setback due to the outbreak of Coronavirus, the recruitment industry has a more significant scope of turning over the previous year’s disappointment with the right recruitment strategies for 2021. It can be a tricky and challenging call to make as we do not know what 2021 has in store for us, but it is worth trying to make yourself strategically equipped for the future.

Pragna lends you a helping hand as a professional strategic advisor in the recruitment industry. We have been serving several reputed companies with recruitment solutions for ages. To know more about our services, feel free to visit our website.