Digital Hiring Is Here To Stay

HR leaders drive change with digital transformation

Before COVID-19, business leaders across the world were talking about digital transformation - with 70 percent of companies already working to implement a digital strategy of some kind. However, this pandemic has fast-tracked digital transformation, forcing companies of all sizes and industries to rethink and re-evaluate their digital plans, today. Transformation and innovation are no longer in the “nice to have'' column - even when it comes to HR. 

As companies fundamentally shift their work environments and people practices in a post-pandemic world, the future of hiring must be intentional, inclusive and nimble enough to withstand crisis and market disruption. And as workforces become more dispersed, the right digital hiring strategy ensures a simpler, smarter and more effective hiring process. 

The focus at the onset of 2020 was digitizing the hiring experience. In other words, designing processes that not only make HR more efficient, but also create connective tissue between HR, employees, and candidates. For example, tasks such as applicant tracking, learning management, payroll, benefits and more have already gone digital and will remain this way. While most things that were important at the beginning of the year pale in comparison to a pandemic, being forced apart has brought even more attention to the experiences and interactions between us.

One important change is our collective comfort with, and our reliance, on technology to deliver employee and candidate experiences both seamlessly and effectively. Pre-crisis, digital experiences were on the rise for many reasons. They are fast, cost-efficient, and give employees direct access to the information they need, eliminating much of HR’s administrative hangover. HR teams were eager to move in that direction and now are readjusting their plans for an “early adoption.”

As companies fundamentally shift their work environments in a post-coronavirus world, digital experiences are in the “must-have” column. Talent acquisition teams are facing the challenge of a lifetime, having to hire in an unemployment market that rivals the Great Depression. 

As companies build back their workforces, they’ll be flooded with applications, making it impossible to follow a process that was designed for hiring in a low unemployment market. That is why companies are modeling a new process – and a new strategy – around digital hiring. 

Digital hiring is not just a short-term patch for dealing with COVID-19 challenges, but rather a long-term hiring solution. We will see a fundamental shift towards digital, remote-ready, AI recruitment and candidate screening tools, which will drive enhanced efficiency, effectiveness and long-term employee happiness. 

Recruiting teams have been sourcing, reviewing resumes, and assessing candidates online for years. But most are not equipped for digital interviewing or digital onboarding at large. To effectively hire in a future where remote work is the new norm, recruiting efforts are lean, and teams are assembled by skillset and compatibility, not physical location. Companies need a complete digital hiring process, not a partial one. 

Just as important is the ability to connect all stakeholders, including candidates, interviewers, and hiring managers into one seamless experience from start to finish. This is what is required to get hiring “up to speed” with HR transformation and the strategy that business leaders are building for the future.  

As many companies - from Twitter to Facebook to WalMart - extend remote work policies for their employees, it is more important than ever to deliver a customized HR approach. Digital experiences are becoming more human by the day, and companies that can deliver on these digital experiences will be best prepared to come out ahead. We are heading towards a future where work is democratized, performance management is crowdsourced, the organization structure is flatter, decision-making is distributed, and employees have more choices than ever. As such, companies need to get on board with digital hiring processes now, and therefore be better positioned in the long-term.

Before the pandemic, businesses were leaning toward transformation - now, they’re being thrusted towards it. As the transformation timeline shortens, leaders must speed up their strategies and reimage their way out of this crisis. Companies that embrace and implement these digital practices into their HR processes will reap the benefits of more lean, productive and high-performing teams.

Greg Moran is Chief Executive Officer of OutMatch. Greg has more than 20 years of human capital management, sales, and leadership experience. He is also the author of Building the Talent Edge: A Field Managers Guide to Recruiting the Best (Spring 2005) and Hire, Fire and The Walking Dead (June 2006, W Business Books).  Connect Greg Moran