In a Hiring Slowdown? Here's How to Continue Recruiting & Engaging Talent

In just a few months, the world has changed rapidly. While this isn’t the first time we’ve faced difficult times, it won’t be the last. Reflecting back on the mortgage crisis in 2008 and the horrific events that took place on September 11th—many of us have found ways to forge new paths through uncertainty.

Whether you’re implementing a temporary hiring freeze or ramping up acquisition efforts, we are all in a position where we must remain efficient and focus on building quality candidate relationships.

Although we cannot be sure when the situation will improve globally and within our organizations, here are steps you can take to remain productive:

1. Build and manage your candidate pipeline. Now is a great time to focus your efforts on building pipelines for hard-to-fill roles and skills. You have an opportunity to go find that “purple squirrel,” or rare perfect fit. Review the candidates in your database and create segments based on skills and experience. Encourage engagement by sending campaigns related to work-from-home strategies, professional development opportunities, and information about your company.

2. Engage in quality conversations with job seekers. This is a great opportunity to have more meaningful conversations. Spend time getting to know your applicants on a deeper level—what are their interests and motivations? In addition to their skills, discovering more about them can help you identify if they’re a good culture fit.

3. Review performance metrics and KPIs. With metrics like time-to-hire slowing down for many, consider putting the more popular recruiting metrics on hold. Instead, focus on quality-of-hire to guarantee your next placement is a long-term success.

4. Dedicate time to sourcing quality candidates. As you gain more time back in your day, consider dedicating a portion towards refining your search criteria. How can you narrow your talent pool from tens of thousands to a smaller segment of best-fit candidates? This is also a good time to review your analytics to see where candidates are coming from—is one job board driving more traffic than another? That’s where you’ll want to invest your efforts and budget.

5. Refine your interview skills and process. It’s easy to start going through the motions when times are normal. Take some time to review your interview process—from the questions you ask to the interview format—and make improvements as you see fit. Have you received feedback from candidates in the past? Now you can truly reflect on what should be adjusted. And if you don’t have a feedback mechanism in place, there’s no better time to implement one.

6. Review, adjust, and enhance your candidate experience. What part of your candidate experience could use improvements? Review every interaction and step within the candidate journey, from the search process all the way to the moment they receive a job offer. Identify what could be improved and fix what might be broken.

7. Address candidates who are currently interviewing. Make sure you are transparent with candidates who are in the midst of an interview process with your company. Constant communication is key in making sure candidates feel a sense of awareness and trust.

8. Collaborate and brainstorm ideas with your team. Unity is key. Share ideas among your team members on all of the strategies above, and learn from each other. If one recruiter is challenged with something, someone else might have a solution. Remember, you are stronger together.