It would be nearly a year since the lockdowns and other restrictive measures were imposed, tremendously impacting the way we work and conduct business in such a short time. The impact has been so profound and far-reaching that a business could be truly left behind if it doesn’t catch up quickly.
Many of us have seen how retail and travel have been hit the hardest by the pandemic: most consumers now opt to buy online and airplanes have been grounded for the most part. Pilots and cabin crew have found other sources of revenue, with some venturing into food and home-based businesses to get by.
Some industries, though, have been thriving, including logistics, food manufacturing and technology. While many Filipinos lost their jobs during this time, the job market remains ripe with opportunities in industry-specific fields. It is a question of how efficiently and effectively a company can hire people. Already, it is time-consuming sieving through the countless profiles and resumés of candidates that can possibly come from a slew of sources: social media platforms, emails, instant messaging apps and the like. Recruitment could be time-consuming if not done properly, wasting in the process equally important resources, such as people and energy, that could have been spent on something more productive.
In an interview early this month, Jobstreet Philippines said 2020 saw an about 75-percent drop in job vacancies, which are now projected to bounce back to 85 to 90 percent within the next three months. Some of the thriving industries in the market, such as health care, business process outsourching, logistics and transportation-related services, among others, see an increasing demand for people with flexible work arrangements. One effective way of recruiting or hiring en masse is to outsource this task to capable recruitment service providers. Organizations that require an efficient and effective recruitment process should look into the provider’s methodology or best practices to ensure that cost per hire remains at a minimum. For instance, Find HR, a leading recruitment process outsourcing and placement services company in the Philippines, highlights these key points to streamline the arduous recruitment process by leveraging on available capabilities:
– Resumé parsing. Job marketplaces and similar websites showcasing candidates’ profiles and other related information proliferate online, which could give the recruiter a clutter-filled database that can take up too much time. Parsing the candidates’ profiles allows your recruitment team to streamline and effectively find suitable pools of candidates for the job you want filled.
– Engagement. This is an important touchpoint for your candidate. How a company engages its prospective employees and how seamless the experience can be could speak volumes for the candidate. First, there are many ways to communicate with your candidates without a phone interview. Nowadays, engagement has become digital, given the many platforms available. Most recruitment activities, like individual and panel interviews, are now conducted using online tools with video capabilities. This gives more insights to the recruitment team in highlighting a candidate’s strengths or weaknesses, such as empathy, collaboration and complex problem-solving — all undeniably regarded as skills of the future. In addition, some of the simpler tasks required, like scheduling, can now be done with bots. Leveraging on the technologies available, especially for customer-facing requirements, would greatly reduce the time and effort spent on these.
– Artificial intelligence. Scrubbing the internet with information about a candidate can take a lot of time. AI provides capabilities to give information about a candidate as part of the reference checking done by recruitment companies. Besides this, there are other capabilities available in AI that allow for interview validation, such as knowing if the candidate’s statements are true or not. Service providers like Find HR utilize technology solutions related to AI and recruitment, such as its Franki chatbot and an automated candidate engagement platform, to quickly help qualify potential candidates for the vacant roles.
By now, more organizations are easing into the new normal after shifting their operations to digital. The job market will see new opportunities, including large-scale recruiting. For companies looking to outsource their recruitment process, they must understand the recruitment provider’s capabilities in sourcing candidates to help address the job market we have in the new normal.
Kay Calpo Lugtu is the chief operating officer of Hungry Workhorse, a digital and culture transformation firm. Her advocacies include nation-building, sustainability education and financial literacy. The author may be reached at kay.lugtu@hungryworkhorse.com.