About 5 years ago, we started developing our recruitment technology stack with the expectation that our people who were working in the office might work from home or offsite sometimes, maybe access files while they were on the go, or get more information about a project that they were working on - from their mobile device. We already knew that the digital disruption was upon us and it was only a matter of time before we found our systems and tools outdated.

We needed to make that big leap.

Little did we know that three years into this project, the way we work and live would be fundamentally changed by an organism smaller than the human eye could see. While our foresight paid off, the challenges of living and working as a business through the pandemic have been unprecedented - as everybody can attest to. After 2 years and almost at the tail end of this ordeal, these are now the norms in the recruitment industry:

VIRTUAL HIRING IS BECOMING AN INCREASINGLY STANDARD PROCESS

People who have been hired in the past 2 years may have undergone at least one video interview or may have been hired without ever visiting the office prior to working. Before the pandemic started, most companies hadn’t considered this recruitment process. At Zoom Recruitment, we have virtually hired quality candidates who are operating on worksites or working from home in both permanent and casual roles.

REMOTE WORKING AS A GAME CHANGER IN HIRING OFFICE STAFF

The pandemic has changed the way white-collar companies and organisational leaders have looked at working from home. What was once just a possibility became a necessity to keep the wheels of businesses turning. This has also influenced recruitment through the fact that flexibility in location was given consideration. There are now people who are part of a team in Sydney but live and work from home in Melbourne. Skills, experience and what the candidate can offer in the role have superseded the importance of vicinity when it comes to roles that can be done digitally.

EXPERIENCE IS NOT ENOUGH

Companies now have a growing preference to hire for skills and knowledge over experience or education. In the last 12 months this has become evident as companies hiring for tech are paying candidates with specific skillsets 45% more - especially as a result of the shortage of skilled migrants. LinkedIn has also been emphasising skills-based hiring. And this is not just limited to office jobs. Operations in industrial sectors have seen significant growth in workers who have soft skills and are knowledgeable in automation programs, robotics and the “digital toolbox.” Work is changing at a very rapid rate due to the continual developments in technology. Workers and companies need to keep up - but more so the traditional recruiter when looking for the best fit. A common fallback has been the number of years of experience a candidate has rather than the number of skills.

RECRUITMENT TECHNOLOGY BECOMES MORE TARGETED AND INTELLIGENT

The days of flipping through dozens of resumes are about to end with artificial intelligence in Recruitment CRM’s and other SAAS programs tackling this challenge for their human counterparts. This automated solution is becoming an industry standard for an efficient selection process - not only for skills but also work, tools and systems experience. For us at Zoom Recruitment, this targeted and automated selection in the initial stages of the recruitment process has given us more time to sit down with qualified applicants and dig deeper to find out if they are the perfect fit for the company where they’re applying to work. We are proud to say that we have been very particular in building our recruitment technology stack, making sure it serves our main purpose of building relationships with our candidates and our clients. As the web of apps and tech is growing every month, recruitment agencies and companies need to remember that at the core of it all, the point is to Make People Matter.

FLEXIBILITY IS KEY TO BUSINESS CONTINUITY

One of the things companies have learnt during the pandemic is that market demands as well as government rules can change quickly - and they did - so often during the pandemic. Businesses needed to adapt immediately during lockdowns to keep operating and also to get their businesses ready for a sudden spike when restrictions eased overnight. We have experienced the biggest demands we’ve had, not only from when clients needed to increase their workforce by threefold over the weekend, but also when new government mandates required certificates for health and safety for our people who were already in offices and on worksites, or candidates getting ready for their first day on the job. As the effect of this pandemic continues to linger, even indirectly, flexibility in company operations and recruitment is key to meet product and service demands.

RECRUITMENT AS SOLE RESPONSIBILITY IS LIMITING

What clients need from the person who helps them hire staff is for that person to know how their business operates, which values they uphold, and the staffing demands that they experience all year round. At Zoom Recruitment, we are all recruiters - but that’s only one aspect of our client management and consultation. For us to truly add value to our clients’ businesses, we need to go above and beyond just recruitment. Businesses now expect their recruitment agency to get involved in business consulting, workforce forecasting and allocation, and people management. Expanding our skillsets and owning the entire HR process for our clients is the position that we have always taken and the direction that our people’s careers grow towards.

The changes we’ve thought would take 10 years have been brought forward by this pandemic to today. Technology will become smarter and challenges will become more complex, but if we focus on cultivating the relationships in the recruitment industry and the wider business community, we can find solutions together and help each other to face whatever the future brings.