Workplace hiring strategies have gone unchanged for decades. Sure, they’ve evolved to meet the digital revolution (to an extent), but traditional business practices, including hiring strategies, remained sturdy in place for the most part. The dramatic acceleration of remote working is changing that. While a time may come when all workplaces are totally remote, many will dip their toes in with a hybrid workplace structure. If you fall into that category, here are three tips and tricks you can (and should) use to guide your hybrid hiring strategy.
3 Tips for a Hybrid Hiring Strategy (That Actually Work)
1. Build a Bigger Talent—Like WAY Bigger
If you could pinpoint one major drawback of traditional hiring practices, it’s that they’re seriously restricting, specifically, in terms of geographic reach. Said another way, if you’re based in New York City, you can’t really pull from a talent pool wider the tri-state area. This isn’t to say there aren’t many right-fit candidates within that area, but it does mean that millions of other potentially perfect ones are forever out of your reach.
With hybrid working becoming common, these barriers are falling, giving you the ability to reach previously elusive candidates. Here’s the kicker: This doesn’t mean you should abandon the hiring strategies that got you this far. Success with a hybrid hiring strategy should involve a healthy mix of in-person and online interactions. Not only does this make sense right now, but changing your ways gradually will make a more profound shift down the road that much easier. A cost-efficient and a low-lift way to do this is by working with a recruiting and staffing partner that already has existing networks in place.
2. Make Video and Other Video Tools the Norm
In-person interviews, physical copies of resumes, and formal onboarding are great, but they’re no longer mutually exclusive. Digital-first versions of all of these will continue to strengthen into a required part of a hybrid hiring process. So, if you haven’t done so already, beefing up related technology and strategies is vital.
That said, this shift doesn’t just mean you should upgrade to Zoom’s premium package. Rather, it means you must rethink every touchpoint you have with candidates—think virtual job fairs and more robust technology for recruiting and onboarding. Until now, you may have considered these as “nice to have” parts of your hiring process, but in a hybrid world, they’ll be necessary.
3. Team Up with Hiring and Recruiting Pros
Like all life changes, adjusting to a hybrid hiring strategy will take time. While this learning curve is expected, every day you spend trying to wrap your head around the new standard means less time you can spend on critical hiring tasks—ones that can prevent you from making an offer to the perfect candidate before one of your competitors do.
This doesn’t have to happen. Ever. All you have to do is team up with a staffing and recruiting specialist with the experience, know-how, and existing networks in place to help you successfully navigate the uncharted waters of hybrid working.
Hybrid Hiring: A Fundamental Shift in the Way You Hire
Switching from a traditional hiring strategy to a hybrid one will require a fundamental shift in how you search for, engage, and ultimately hire. This means gaining access to a wider talent pool, adopting future-facing technologies and strategies, and seeking help from third parties who’ve been there and done that. By taking these three tips, you’ll set your hybrid hiring strategy up for success.