How to add value as an in-house recruiter during a downturn.

During a market downturn, recruitment departments are one of the first to be affected as companies try to cut costs and manage cashflow. Companies have felt the full affects of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to almost all industries and sectors announcing a recruitment freeze or drastically slowing down their pace of recruitment as they look to adopt new technologies or change in processes. The job market will recover slowly post the pandemic and we're unlikely to see pre-COVID-19 recruitment levels returning for at least 12-18 months. Talent Acquisition professionals therefore need to be agile and be able to engage themselves with some "out of the box" responsibilities.

So with less candidates to interview & onboard, how can in-house teams still add value during a downturn? Below are just a few tips to keep yourself busy and engaged;

1. Build candidate pipelines for tricky-to-fill roles

Every organization has bottleneck functions, where you consistently face challenges in finding or attracting the right candidate to the available role. This could be due to a shortage of the desired skills, qualifications, experience or a difference in payscales between what your organization can afford and the average salary of candidates in the market.

Take a proactive approach and start building a candidate pool or pipeline for these roles. This could drastically save you time and improve your overall time-to-hire when, inevitably, recruitment budgets are approved again. This doesn't mean you have to directly engage with candidates and start interviewing them, but noting down details in a spreadsheet will allow you to action quickly once you get going again. Add value now by spending time sourcing for candidates for tricky-to-fill roles to increase your chances of successfully hiring someone in the future.

2. Focus on different Projects & Initiatives

Spend more time focusing on team or company projects and initiatives. Is your company looking at ways to improve work-life balance? Or providing better flexible working options? Perhaps you have some ideas of your own to improve certain processes or operations in your business? Enroll for more projects and take an active part by researching your competitors or benchmarking against global companies.

Some of the hot recruitment topics include ways to improve candidate experience, the use of AI and other advanced technology in recruitment, marketing your opportunities and recruitment operations (the how of what we do).

3. What's trending in the Recruitment industry?

This could be a good time and opportunity to reconnect with what's trending in the recruitment industry.

As briefly mentioned under projects and initiatives, there are some exciting new tools and technology which are enhancing candidate experience and making the whole candidate journey seamless. AI tools are providing ways to video screen applicants, match skills to job opportunities, source desired candidates, automatically schedule interviews, and tons of other features & benefits which are reducing the administrative tasks of recruiters, as well as creating a better overall candidate experience. This will create a new breed of recruitment business partners, who will use data and analytical skills to advise hiring managers when selecting the most suitable candidates for job opportunities. To ensure you don't fall behind the curve, use any available time to read-up about the latest recruitment trends which are affecting the industry your company operates in. Share the new knowledge you've gained with the key decision makers in your organization to see if it could be rolled out as a new project or initiative.

4. Support your HR colleagues and other departments

Talent Acquisition/Recruitment is one of the many streams of HR. If you're finding you have more time on your hands, why not offer your help and support to your HR colleagues? From Talent Management, Compensation & Benefits, HR Business Partners, HR IT/Operations, offer your support and take on the opportunity to broaden your own skill-set and experience. This proactive approach will be well recognized by your colleagues who may be busier than usual, managing the challenges of staff and stakeholders working remotely.

5. Increase your business and industry understanding

Use any available time to further enhance your knowledge about your company and the industry it operates in. This could be a great time to really understand the nuts and bolts of your company and the industry. This will improve your interviewing skills by giving you the added business and industry understanding. Being able to talk business terms and have strategic conversations with your stakeholders will build your credibility. Forming a business, industry and market understanding will allow you to understand the challenges your stakeholders face, and allow you to formulate strategic solutions, such as finding the right candidate for a role which requires a specific technical skillset by tapping in to niche networks or using targeted recruitment marketing campaigns.

There is an abundance of material available online from YouTube tutorials, lectures and interviews, to articles and reports on Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times and Forbes. You can also follow industry experts on social media platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn to follow the latest trends and developments.

6. Stay in touch with internal & external stakeholders and share market insights

In-house recruiters have a vast network of internal stakeholders (hiring managers, different teams, functions and colleagues) and external stakeholders (recruitment agencies, consultants and of course candidates). By staying in touch with your contacts and network, you can pick-up on various trends which could be useful for your internal stakeholders. Share market insights and materials you receive from your recruitment partners, for example, which could help shape how your organization navigates itself through the current pandemic.

The use and popularity of webinars has increased dramatically over the past few months, which is great way to stay connected with what's current. There have been a host of webinars related to running remote processes as we navigate our way through the COVID-19 pandemic, including interview tools, onboarding processes and how to manage remote workers to achieve productive, motivated and engaged staff. These could be great tools and ideas to share with your stakeholders, especially senior leaders of your business.

7. Take up the opportunity to study

Remember when you couldn't find the time in order to study for that qualification you really wanted? This could provide you with the perfect opportunity to embark on a qualification you never had the time to commit to, such as SHRM or CIPD, which would add value to your role as an in-house recruiter. Such educational bodies provide tools and articles on their websites with HR/Talent related topics to help you navigate your time through the current market conditions.

In order to continue adding value as an in-house recruiter during a downturn, the key message is to stay connected, be proactive and look at ways to enhance your skills and capabilities by utilizing the extra time to research, study and read. I'm sure a popular question in future interviews will be "how did you as an in-house recruiter add value and stay engaged during the COVID-19 pandemic". If your firm was experiencing a hiring freeze, you need to show that you took the initiative to stay engaged and added value in non-recruitment ways.

Have some other ideas you want to share? Feel free to add your comments and thoughts below.