Post-Covid Recruitment

Throughout 2020, care providers had to embrace technology as never before. From virtual meetings to helping residents with FaceTime, Zoom, and MS Teams to keep in touch with their families, everyone has become more IT-savvy. Is this new way of recruitment post-Covid here to stay?

In November, social care outsourcing agency Cohesion Recruitment held a webinar entitled ‘Has the pandemic launched recruitment into Tomorrow’s World?’ Using the case study of Fairlie Healthcare it discussed how the recruitment process has altered as a result of the pandemic, and whether some or all of these changes are here to stay.

One of the main points of discussion was carrying out interviews ‘virtually’ instead of candidates visiting the home, which could not happen during lockdown as homes were closed to visitors. Cohesion found that ¾ of the candidates booked for a virtual interview attended, compared with a ‘no-show’ rate for a face-to-face interview which can be as high as 50%. The subject of online interviews was picked up later in the webinar, where the disadvantages were discussed:

• Candidates cannot see the home or meet the residents
• It can be difficult for the interviewer to pick up on non-verbal cues/body language
• It can be more awkward to interview this way, due to people talking over each other and possible connectivity issues.

Cohesion Recruitment advised supporting candidates by showing them how to use the technology pre-interview, and reported that many care providers were planning to continue offering interviews online as it speeded up the recruitment process.

Other points which arose during the webinar were:

• People were generally accepting offers of employment more quickly, possibly related to general economic uncertainty and the need to be employed
• Use ‘stay’ interviews to lower staff turnover rate, by asking new staff what would be required to keep them in their roles
• In the first 90 days of employment, it is important to arrange peer mentoring and to show appreciation of your staff (see Elaine Grose’s piece in our Winter 2020 edition for ideas on how to do this!)
• Promote different opportunities in your organisation (career progression or specialising), with different adverts to appeal to different audiences (gender, age, etc.)
• Early findings from a survey carried out by Cohesion show that 90% of care providers expect to continue using online interviews, and 75% would like to see more automation in the recruitment process.

In conclusion it appears that, despite the challenges, online recruitment is working - and is here to stay!

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