In March of 2020, it seemed as though the world shifted. Millions of companies were faced with vacating their offices, and working from home became the new normal almost immediately.
The forced evolution of remote work due to Covid-19 has permanently changed the recruiting industry by creating a nationwide talent pool and enabling candidates to be sourced from anywhere. The current national recruiting landscape consists of firms that are knowledgeable about successful national recruiting.
Let’s examine how the recruiting landscape has seismically changed and how to best adapt to be successful in an increasingly digital world.
Locally Sourcing Talent Is The Way Of The Past
Before Covid-19, many leading companies like Yahoo were fixated on the idea that employees work best by physically congregating. However, with public health laws forcing everyone to go remote, Covid-19 and the CDC gave organizations the safest options on how to move forward in this new work environment.
As the pandemic continued, companies began realizing that the pandemic would last longer than expected, and some organizations embraced being fully remote as advantages started to surface. The ability to cut office space and reduce business travel allowed companies to cut considerable expenses, and many businesses also began to realize the long-term benefits – such as their ability to hire from anywhere if they didn’t require a physical presence at their facilities.
With geography no longer hindering hiring managers, it became possible to recruit the top candidates without worrying about location. The advantages of having access to an exponentially larger talent pool aren’t lost on recruiters. Employees have experienced remote working, and many aren’t ready to give it up. With the return to office protocols starting, the companies that will succeed and hire their top candidates will continue recruiting at a national level and keep remote work as a possibility.
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The Nationwide Talent Pool Challenge
As companies remove the bounds on their hiring radius, recruiters must manage the logistical hurdles of sifting through the mountains of eligible candidates. The national talent pool is not going away. It will be up to recruiters to adapt to the new landscape and embrace digital solutions if they want to survive. This practice has always been at the center of the way Concero recruits.
Getting up to speed on the latest trends of the recruiting world is a necessity in order to survive in a post-Covid world. Still, the adjustment can be jarring for organizations not arranged for the logistical lift of processing thousands of potential candidates for roles.
How to Take Advantage of This Change
The questions that hiring managers are asking their potential recruiting partners have changed in the last year. A recruiting firm’s clients have always expected a depth of experience in the field, scalability to need and efficiency to produce candidates on tight timelines, but now, hiring managers want to know if recruiting partners can do all of those things on a national level.
The firms that began walking this path before the remote work revolution were set up for success in the new pandemic recruiting landscape. Recruiters must hone their skills on digital tools that enable sifting through national candidate pools. Before the pandemic, our team had built a proprietary database to assist recruitment efforts — a good investment that has become an invaluable tool to drive efficient, scalable sourcing and hiring.
Another way to embrace the national talent pool is to go fully remote at your firm. We have taken this step at our organization, providing incredible insight into what traits lead to success in a remote office, improving our external hiring.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Remote work is here to stay. There are too many advantages for businesses seeking top talent to return to a geographically limiting hiring model. Recruiting firms must also adapt to the new landscape by embracing digital tools and remaining agile to meet a business’ needs.
