Modern Recruiting: Recruiting and Hiring When You’re Remote

The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the way we live and work. As the world went digital, so too did the recruiting industry. Recruiters now have to be as tech-savvy as their applicants; they must know how to use social media, SEO techniques, and more to find jobs for candidates who are looking for remote opportunities.
The recruitment process is no longer confined by geographic location or even time zones—the best recruiters can reach out anywhere in the world and get a response from equally qualified professionals willing to work remotely.
Recruiting and Hiring When You’re Remote
As the world becomes increasingly digital, so has the recruiting industry. One of our biggest challenges when adapting to this change is understanding everything that’s happened and where we should go next.
Local Recruiting: The Way of the Past
The recruitment industry has had to make major changes since the emergence of a global pandemic. Now, most talent acquisition professionals have shifted their office headquarters to home – taking the recruiting function (as well) with them.
But, perhaps one of the biggest changes in the recruiting industry is that geographic location or time zone is no longer taken into account when sourcing talent. Currently, candidates are now more than willing to work remotely from remote locations and can still make an equal salary through contracts and other agreements.
Remote working arrangements allow companies to hire candidates for positions they might not otherwise be able to fill locally because there simply isn’t enough talent available within reasonable commuting distance or because the company is pursuing a global talent pool.
The relocation question has gone away; remote work has permanently transformed the recruiting industry.
As the global talent pool expands, it’s imperative that recruiters develop a wide range of augmented sourcing skills. Here are some ways you can reach out to and hire remote talent without having to be local.
Recruitment Strategies for Modern Remote Hiring
Recruitment is an ever-changing profession. Recruiters have to adapt and change strategies as they are faced with new challenges, which can dramatically alter their recruitment process and make it better for the future hires of that organization.
Before we get into the details, there are some key miscellaneous items you need to prepare before creating a recruitment strategy. Once you’ve completed these tasks — which are required for any successful recruiting strategy — then you can check out how innovative companies have been using new recruitment strategies today.
– Understand Your Current Recruitment Metrics
You can’t effectively reinvent your recruitment strategy without first understanding what’s currently working and what needs improvement. To do that, you need to take a look at your recruitment metrics. This will allow you to set attainable goals and determine which strategies will help you reach them.
While many recruiters both past and present find the COVID-19 pandemic worrisome, it has actually shaped our recruiting industry in ways we may not have anticipated back when it all began. Recruiters are now more invested in remote workers, who are usually overseen by predictive technology tools like virtual coaching or smart tracking systems instead of a live recruiter being behind every desk.
– Identify Your Recruiting Goals
Now that you’ve identified the top problems in your recruitment process, strategize ways to improve them moving forward. If it’s hard to get candidates to apply, try new job board platforms or host a virtual hiring event. If it takes 3+ months to fill a position, tap into different networks or offer your team admin free jobs and higher employee referral bonuses.
There is an unlimited number of strategies you can implement but first identify what this means by setting goals and planning how to reach them.
– Invest In Modern Recruitment Tools
Employing remote recruitment tools to streamline recruiting can help you save time and money while reducing the headache of hiring. With increased production rates, streamlined labor allocation, and effective virtual interviewing capabilities, these tools are a great investment for any recruiter.
– Identify Your Current Social Media Engagements
Social media recruiting is a much better way to find talent. Recently recruiters have begun using new methods other than the big four – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – like Bumble, Tinder, TikTok, Snapchat Discord, and beyond depending on your industry leverage the right social media to find the best candidates.
5 Modern Recruitment Techniques You Should Be Using Right Now To Hire Remote Talent
1. Employer Branding Is Everything: Be Authentic
Hiring the best talent in today’s market requires modern branding and a keen understanding of specific customer needs. Your brand must indicate what you do and who it does it for, communicate in an easy to understand manner, permeate social media channels with content that grabs candidate’s attention, build company culture on the foundation of values shared by employees and candidates, and be mindful of the needs of potential job seekers.
Employer branding is a long-term commitment that requires creativity to stay fresh in an ever-changing marketplace. If you’re not constantly thinking about your brand and how it connects with candidates, then competitors will swoop in who are more committed to their brand.
Employers can’t just focus on what they do for the job seekers from day to day – their brand must communicate who it does it for, in an easy way that people will remember and understand. One of the key components of employer branding is creating a narrative about your company’s story or history starting with its founding.
As you recruit more and more with remote work, the employer brand becomes even more critical. No one will have ever seen your office in person. They will learn about your company online or through current employees.
Start as soon as you can, or if it’s already there, evaluate to see if that tells your story in an authentic way. If not, work with your employer branding team to create a narrative that will resonate and be believable to the modern workforce you are trying to attract.
2. Modernize Your Recruiting Web Page
To promote recruitment success, it is imperative to have a well-crafted careers page online. In today’s technology-driven world, candidates are looking for more than just the basic information about your company when trying to make their decision of where they want to work; not only do we need an enticing web page with videos and unique photos, but an effective social media presence as well.
Don’t be afraid to put a little extra time into your recruitment marketing strategies – it will not only look better but also boost engagement rates.
Here are some quick steps to take:
- Add social media buttons at the bottom of each post so that you can connect with potential candidates on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more without leaving their web browser window open.
- Ensure your website content has quality over quantity; this way you won’t increase bounce rate or run out of interesting things to say in blog posts before they get published.
- Avoid using forced metrics like how many likes, retweets, or followers someone has on Instagram because these numbers don’t mean anything.
- Make your blog posts more shareable on social media by adding a “Share” button to the bottom of each post.
- Think about how you can create content that’s valuable for potential candidates, not just current employees. For example: what are some skills they might need in order to be successful at this company?
- Include an “Apply Now” button on your blog post so that candidates can apply directly from the blog page, rather than having to search for and navigate to your company’s job application site or third-party service such as LinkedIn. This will increase the number of applicants you receive and make it easier for them to find opportunities at your organization.
- Provide a detailed FAQs page for common questions, like “Do you have any openings?” and “How do I apply for a job at your company?”. The application process is different for every company, so save time by writing responses to the most popular inquiries. Answering these questions will save both recruiters and candidates from having to contact each other about irrelevant information clarified on the website or in detail descriptions of positions.
- Leverage chatbot technology on your website to provide a better customer experience. Chatbots are capable of understanding questions and providing answers that can be useful to potential employers while also improving the user interface for applicants.
3. Share Your Company Culture: Be Transparent
A company’s culture plays a large role in today’s hiring process. As candidates learn more about the company and what it is like to work there, they are able to make an educated decision on whether or not to apply. Leverage your brand by showcasing the best parts of working for your company and enticing others to join.
Highlight the benefits and perks that come from working for your company, such as flexible hours, paid holidays, tuition assistance, gym membership discounts, or any other incentives you can offer.
Share what it’s like to work at your company by using social story media formats on platforms where they are popular (i.e., Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat). These platforms provide posts about the exciting things happening in your business each week and why employees should join you! These videos will be short so people want them to see more – oftentimes viewers only watch up until their snap limit is reached which means they’ll need to “keep coming back” for new content.
4. Create Dedicated Recruiting Channels
Go beyond Social Media by creating dedicated recruiting social channels on platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.
Create a dedicated page for your recruiting team on LinkedIn with the following content: “We’re always looking for talented people to join our team! Check out upcoming job openings” – make sure that this is kept up-to-date as soon as new positions arise.
Share specific company events (i.e., quarterly socials) through email newsletters or promotional campaigns at least two weeks in advance so employees can plan their schedules accordingly
Develop a newsletter that includes relevant information about the company’s latest updates, hiring opportunities, etc. This should be sent biweekly or monthly depending on how often you update it.
5. Virtual Networking Events or Network Groups
Attending professional events online helps you form contacts outside of your company as well as making them more accessible for future hiring. Events like virtual job fairs, seminars, and conferences offer the opportunity to meet people in person.
Utilize chat rooms to communicate with other virtual attendees. Ask open-ended questions like, “What do you want from this event?” or “What are your goals for the next year?” in order to identify qualified candidates.
If you are not able to attend a virtual networking event, another great way to connect with people is through network groups on platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook. Connecting on these platforms can also be an opportunity for you to find potential candidates that may have found your organization’s career page but did not submit their resume.
In conclusion: Recruiters are forced to be creative in modern society, with online engagements and technology being a key way of finding top talent. Recruiting has changed from just publishing a job post and the best matching candidate applying. Now recruiters must actively find candidates for their open positions no matter where they may live or work on the planet.