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Top Tips to Keep You Recruiting During COVID-19

By Lawrence Gill

During these exceptional times, agencies across the recruitment sector need to maintain a level of calm and continue to communicate with candidates for future roles for when our working lives return to normal. Although the entire process will be radically changed for the time being, consistency is key and being able to reassure your candidates that you’re still working for them can make a big difference.

We’ve come up with some key tips to help you stay on top of the game while times are tough for everyone.

Define the key roles

It will be important over the next few weeks to focus your efforts on key roles. Determine which roles will become the priority once things get back to normal and concentrate on these. Reducing the number of roles you focus on can lead to greater success later.

Talk to your clients and find out what their priorities are in terms of hiring after the crisis is over. Many may change their priorities according to evolution of the national emergency.

Create your temporary recruiting process

Work out the best way to continue with a new recruiting process. In-person interviews will be suspended, but there are other options.

Keep it simple and avoid full application processes for the time being. These exceptional times call for exceptional measures. 

Communicate your intentions and keep in touch

Video calls add a personal touch to your process. Even if an interview cannot take place, you can reach out to both your candidate and your client during a video call and offer reassurance.

Maintain consistency in your communications and keep in regular contact via email, phone or video with updates on the recruitment process. 

Be honest with your candidates and keep them informed of any updates or changes to your process.

Support your candidates and clients

A friendly face or voice can make all the difference during times of crisis. Remember that most people are anxious, and many are very recently out of work, perhaps for the first time in a long time. 

Talk about personal experience and about how you and your agency are handling the emergency. Discuss how you’re being supported and offer reassurance that you’ll be there for them throughout the process.

Offer help with the process. This could include:

  • CV writing tips
  • Interview techniques
  • Job application advice
  • Video conferencing tips and recommended platforms

Once the world begins to return to normal, it will be important to both clients and candidates that they’ve been supported throughout the crisis. At some point there will be a renewed surge in the general employment market and agencies around the country will be working hard again. Make sure you’re one of them.

With a central cloud-based system, everyone can see and search all candidates in one place. It’s given us a more structured approach, and day-to-day tasks are now managed more efficiently.
Fiona Frisson Senior Account Manager at Tarot Recruitment
Our focus is on providing our clients with top-quality candidates suited to their specific requirements. We can only do that because we trust Vacancy Lab to support what we do.
Jonathan Bates Partner at MPQR Resourcing Solutions
We’ve become a more productive and more effective business since we brought in Vacancy Lab. It’s made a real difference to how we deal with candidates and what we can achieve for clients.
Anthony Kelly Public Sector Director at Harvey Recruit Ltd.