The Playbook For Post-Pandemic Recruiting And Hiring

An opportunity to rewrite the playbook on recruiting and hiring practices

2020 was a year of upheavals in and out of the workplace. Job losses and a general aura of uncertainty along with emotionally heightened conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion highlighted several opportunities for organizations to reassess their strategies and processes around recruiting, hiring, retaining, and investing in talent.

However, the latter half of 2021, marked by the widespread availability of vaccines and re-openings across the United States, presents the hope of an increasingly strengthening job market, and a growing slate for organizations looking to hire widely.

According to the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, U.S. job openings rose to a fresh record high in May 2021, underscoring persistent hiring challenges and reflecting more vacancies in the health care, education, and hospitality industries. And somehow, the race for talent has gotten even steeper.

As job openings surge in the US, and as companies evaluate their next steps, there is an opportunity to rewrite the playbook on recruiting and hiring practices. Now is the time to design truly inclusive workplaces, but even for the most well-meaning and tireless seekers of diversified talent, it can be a real challenge. How does a company diversify and strengthen its workforce when the desired talent is difficult to initially identify and attract?

One of the greatest enemies of dynamic and diverse workforces is the overreliance on traditional academics and resumes. Application tracking systems can scan for target schools or past work experience at high-profile employers, but there’s no question this means companies are regularly overlooking or inadvertently eliminating otherwise ideal candidates simply because their education and employment histories don’t come with recognizable logos. Organizations need to refocus their hiring lens to gain fresh perspectives. They must look past traditional recruiting methods and change the way they view what candidates have to offer.

After all, top talent can emerge from any college or university or varied work and life experiences,  making them successful by applying their strengths and their passions to opportunities, which many companies are increasingly valuing. Forward-thinking organizations are building up their workforces for now and in the future in the same way. Define the opportunity, identify the strengths needed to go after it, and then hire the candidate according to those strengths, keeping in mind that while not every candidate has the particular background you’re looking for, the talent you are looking for can come from just about anywhere.

Another reason why synergistic and diverse talent may not seem to be available: the negative feedback loop. They didn’t go to the “right” schools, so they didn’t get the “right” internships, so they didn’t get the “right” jobs that could help them get even better jobs. All along the way, they may have acquired valuable, transferrable skills without realizing just how relevant and applicable they are. If they don’t know they have these skills, how can they know how to communicate them to prospective employers?

Hiring managers have an opportunity to break this cycle and provide opportunities to individuals who have the talent and strengths required to excel in the organization and specific roles. Some organizations are delivering some much-needed assistance in this area – organizations like FourBlock, which help veterans and military spouses identify and demonstrate their strengths to hiring managers, and the Opportunity Network, a program helping underrepresented youth overcome the opportunity gap in pursuit of thriving careers, but there are plenty more. Hiring managers should consider them partners.

You might ask: if hiring managers should not focus solely on college educations or work experience, what should they look for? The answer lies in a candidate’s whole picture which includes their aptitude, skills, and intrinsic strengths. Taking this alternative approach will pay off massively and increase an organization’s talent pipeline.

For example, a parent who left during the height of the global pandemic may have a gap on their resume. But that time was likely filled with experiences that would transfer over to the workplace seamlessly: coordinating schedules, collaboration, resiliency, negotiating, and problem-solving.

Time and time again, research shows that when candidates align their strengths with their work the result is more positive work experiences and increased employee engagement. For example, a strengths-based recruitment process at Aviva, a multinational insurance firm, reduced attrition by 50% over 12 months. Engaged employees stay and they do amazing work.

This approach can also help minimize the number of application drop-offs. By implementing a standardized recruiting process that looks beyond just work experience and education to evaluate candidates, applicants feel like they belong and have a real shot, resulting in each candidate remaining engaged throughout the process.

As the race for talent accelerates, there is a wealth of untapped talent ready and prepared to get to work. From first-generation students who took time away from their studies to help support their families, parents who put a pause on their careers to raise children, to veterans, to disabled and neurodivergent individuals, these candidates were often left out of consideration--often because they required more flexible working arrangements than companies were willing to offer.

But the past year showed us that talent can be extremely productive and increase output in a work-from-home situation. A report from HR consulting firm Mercer found that 94 percent of employers surveyed reported equal or improved productivity throughout the pandemic.

The transition to remote work over the last year has meant that employees don’t need to move to pricey metros like San Francisco, New York, or Seattle to get their work done. There is an untapped talent market in lesser-known cities throughout the country – with Zoom, Slack, and other workplace tools, work can truly be anywhere.

The race for talent can be won if companies adjust their approaches and stop defining roles so narrowly. We simply need to expand the definition of talent… and what we require of them for now and for the future.

The return to a new normal does not mean we forget the lessons learned over the last year. Employees have proven over and over how resilient and flexible they can be in stressful times. Now it is up to leaders to expand the lens on talent and assess themselves and how their organizations recruit, hire, and develop talent for the future of work now.