Taken together, the coronavirus pandemic and the protest wave have been a transformative force for recruiting and hiring. On one hand, COVID-19 and climbing unemployment rates are making remote-first processes and carefully structured volume hiring absolute necessities. On the other, the spotlight on social justice and inclusion means hiring processes must be as fair and free of bias as possible. These requirements are not easy to satisfy simultaneously, but with the right mindset, recruiters can turn today’s crisis into a competitive advantage unlike any they’ve had before. You just have to embrace the changes and move to align your processes, people, and technology accordingly.
What Makes a Fair Digital Hiring Process?
In a nutshell, digital transformation is the key to creating the right hiring process for today’s talent market, but the concept itself can be hard to grasp in the abstract. The best approach is to define a clear methodology that can make a fair digital hiring process into a reality.
Fairness comes from an unbiased selection process where equal time and attention are given to every candidate. That may seem impossible with so many candidates now on the market, but all you need is the infrastructure to support a data-driven, digital-first hiring process. With this outcome in mind, focus on the following areas of your recruiting process:
1. Matching Technology
“Matching technology” refers to scientifically validated tools that collect data about applicants and use it to determine how likely they are to succeed on the job. Humans often carry unconscious biases, which can influence their hiring decisions, but the right matching technology can help recruiters make more informed hiring decisions based on candidates’ relevant skills. In addition to making candidate selection fairer, matching technology can also speed up the hiring process by removing the bottlenecks that can arise when recruiters have to manually review resumes and conduct front-line phone screens.
2. Automation
With the right matching technology in place, your team can also automate significant portions of their recruitment workflows based on candidates’ matching scores. Recruiters have to be smart with their time, especially in a crowded talent market, and organizations can’t afford to waste expensive work hours on repetitive, low-value tasks. Automating laborious activities like resume screening, scheduling interviews, or following up speeds workflows, gives recruiters time to focus on high-impact activities, and improves overall candidate experience.
3. Business Intelligence
To keep track of everything that is happening in your scientifically validated and automated recruitment process, you need to arm yourself and your team with the right data. Agility is more important than ever today, and teams will need data that is accurate, easy to understand, and up to date...