Part III: The Battle For Top Talent – Why Candidate Experience Could Suffer As We Emerge From COVID-19

To better understand the role of employer brand at a time of crisis, the team at Ph.Creative has commissioned a four-part article series to analyse exactly how COVID-19 has impacted the talent acquisition space.

Each article includes thought-provoking insight from a number of leading employer brand and talent acquisition influencers, as well as our own real-world experience and methodology.

Each week, you can expect a new article to be released.

Previous articles:

●    Part 1: A Tension Between Profitability and Employee Well-Being

●    Part 2: We Can’t Mistake Volume of Availability with Competitiveness to Hire Talent

This article:

●    Part 3: Candidate Experience Could Suffer As We Emerge From COVID-19

Next week’s article:

●    Part 4: Actionable Strategies to Protect Your Employer Brand Legacy Post-COVID-19

As we emerge from the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, there will likely be a rush to hire top talent.

In the process, recruiters could quickly become overwhelmed with unwanted applications, while hiring managers will have to reject a high number of applicants. Collectively, this surge in activity could inundate employers and cause the candidate experience to suffer with diabolical consequences.

If we assume that most employers will face these challenges, then there is a real risk of companies damaging their public reputation and missing out on top talent, including talent that isn’t usually available - unless they seriously consider and re-evaluate the importance of their employer brand and EVP.

To make sense of these shifts, and to understand how the industry’s leading professionals are tackling these issues, I interviewed a number of employer branding experts, including:

●    Craig Fisher, Founder at TalentNetLive and Head of Recruiting Innovation at Allegis Global Solutions

●    Alex Her, Global Employer Brand Program Manager at Informatica

●    Gerry Crispin, Principal & Co-Founder at CareerXroads

●    Tim Sackett, President at HRU Technical Resources

As we’ll see, this impending rush to hire talent could expose candidates to poor brand experiences and cause lasting consequences for employers that fail to think ahead.

To ensure your organization is well-equipped for these shifts, this article will discuss why you need to prepare for a high volume of applications, how to effectively manage the candidate experience at a time of increased activity, and why you should use your employer brand as a smart filter that sits between your recruitment marketing and your recruitment.

The battle for top talent is coming

Since early March, nearly every major economy across the world has taken a hit. Domestic growth is down and unemployment has skyrocketed.

In the US, for example, unemployment figures hit an astronomical 14.7% at their peak in April 2020. To put this into context, that is the highest level of unemployment the country has seen since WWII, surpassing the worst of the 2008 financial crisis by over 4%. As of June 2020, the unemployment rate in the US still sits at over 13%.

The UK has faced major challenges, too. February to April 2020 saw the biggest decline in job vacancies since records began, while the crisis caused a dramatic spike in the number of people claiming unemployment benefits, which reached its highest level since 1996.

To put it simply, the COVID-19 crisis has stretched economies to the limit and forced employers to make tough decisions. As a consequence, this has resulted in a surplus of available talent, who have either been furloughed or made redundant.

As we emerge from what looks like the worst of the pandemic, however, the talent acquisition industry may well be set for a time of unprecedented activity. As confidence returns and candidates look to find a new job, we will likely see a marked spike in applications.

Gerry Crispin notes, “I believe the millions of candidates desperate to get back in the game will apply if given the chance, so recruiters will certainly need to think smarter.”

Craig Fisher agrees, commenting, “Many skilled workers have been laid off or furloughed, and there will be many qualified job seekers looking for work post-COVID-19.”

As candidate applications increase, there is another factor at play that will accelerate this race for talent: demand from employers. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, many organizations have had to make difficult decisions regarding their talent. A large proportion of these companies will be looking to rehire staff to fill short-term gaps and resume their pre-COVID talent acquisition strategies.

Gerry continues, “There’s no question that firms are gearing back up and will be behind in their plans to grow, or they may have a deficit of talent in a number of areas. Finding this talent will be critical to their success.”

Depending on how an organization treated its staff during the pandemic, available talent may not want to re-join their old company. This is a harsh truth that most businesses will have to face, and some may find out the hard way.

As Craig Fisher notes, “The employers who stand out as having taken good care to communicate well and help employees through this crisis will be in the best position to hire talent.”

Remember, all of this activity is taking place in a compressed time frame. Employers and candidates around the world are experiencing emergence from lockdown at roughly the same time, which means it’s highly probable that we’ll see a swell of abnormal application volume.

Alex Her comments, “I honestly feel most employers aren’t prepared for this impending rush for talent at all. I think that most are more concerned about how they can right the wrongs of Q2, while others are struggling to survive and cutting the budget where they can.”

For the savvy talent acquisition leader, however, success means being prepared for more than just a high volume of talent. It also requires extra work and intelligence to ensure the candidate experience is maintained at a level befitting the standards of your organization.

The unwanted consequence of a rush for talent – poor candidate experience

If we accept that candidate application volume is set to spike, then we must understand the unwanted consequences of this rush for talent. First, we need to map out the potential side-effects of this swell in market activity.

Below is a projection of what could happen as we experience a boom in candidate applications and employer interest:

1. Recruiters are destined to be overwhelmed with unwanted applications, which will greatly reduce their ability to find and focus on the candidates you want to hire
2. Hiring managers will have to reject a high volume of people they see for key roles because they are trying to upgrade from previous talent
3. There will be a high application-to-role ratio, leading to greatly reduced personalization

As a consequence…

1. Candidates will be exposed to poor brand experiences
2. Recruiters will be overwhelmed and much less effective than usual
3. Employers risk losing out on top talent because of such high volume
4. Companies risk damaging their overall brand reputation if the candidate experience isn’t designed and managed effectively (since employer brand experience is now more present in the general public’s consciousness)
5. Inefficiency and poor experience at such scale could cost organizations huge amounts in wasted budget, wasted time and result in missing out on the best talent available to them

Clearly, there’s much more at stake than just the battle for top talent. It’s painstakingly evident that a high volume market will lead to a host of issues that must be addressed if companies wish to avoid being overwhelmed.

As Craig Fisher says, “Employers must stress to their recruiters, hiring managers and staffing vendors the critical nature of consistent and transparent communication with job candidates in a high-volume market. That means talent teams must work to ensure all parties in the process are cooperating to keep that top of mind.”

Usually when there’s high volume, it means the employer can dictate the terms, but as we saw in article two of our four-part series, this is a false and dangerous perception.

To prepare for the consequences of a high-volume market, Tim Sackett offers a word of insight, “Post-COVID hiring has to be efficient and tech-driven. Old processes that were manual and high-touch simply won’t work. Organizations must work to make the hiring process as easy and fast as possible, not some sort of hiring obstacle course where a candidate survives the process. I don’t want ‘survival’ candidates, I want the ‘best’ candidate.”

As Tim rightly points out, the organizations that will be successful in the coming months are the ones that will be able to streamline the application process and make sure only the best candidates are put forward.

But how can employers achieve this when there’s a swell of applications and a stark increase in the number of competitors vying for talent at the same time?

By using your employer brand and EVP as a smart filter that sits between your recruitment and recruitment marketing, you can repel the many and compel the few. Here’s how.

How to use your employer brand and EVP as a smart filter

To prepare for this impending rush for talent, organizations need to take a step back and re-assess whether their EVP is still relevant.

According to talent acquisition professionals, an overwhelming 92% say “organizations are not currently doing enough to protect their reputation by investing in employer brand and EVP”.

At the earliest possible chance, then, look at how relevant and current the EVP is to the organization. Gauge the employee response and start measuring how effective your process is to find talent that’s ideally matched. The important metric to focus on here is the percentage of valued applicants, which, from an employer brand perspective, plays a key role in compelling those well culturally matched candidates while also efficiently repelling those candidates who would not thrive working at your organisation.

If you can increase this ratio, you have the ability to increase the volume of high caliber applicants while lowering the overall volume - this is priceless at the best of times, but ahead of what’s to come, it’s essential.

Then, monitor the NPS through the candidate experience and look at how technology can be an enabler to offer candidate experience at scale and on-brand. Here, you must be confident enough to repel talent using the harsh realities of your employee experience, while also trying to compel culturally matched talent towards your brand with the same harsh realities.

At a time of high volume, being able to use your EVP and the harsh realities of your organization to act as a smart filter that sits between your recruitment marketing and your recruitment will be key.

What do I mean by this?

Well, the beauty of employer brand is that everyone is different. Our tolerance, threshold, and endurance for situations, demands, and expectations of a company vary. That’s why you can use your employer brand as a smart filter to compel people who are well suited to your organization to apply, and at the same time encourage people unsuited to your culture to stay away.                                              

Some people will be challenged and engaged by the adversity within your organization. They will find your expectations and demands to be fair and possibly even revel in the idea that they can cope where others could not.

Other candidates, however, will be turned off, dissuaded and completely deterred from applying for any roles you may have.

This is how you “repel the many and compel the few” with the same message.

In a marketplace unlike any we’ve seen in our lifetime, being able to compel the right candidates to apply sooner based on a sense of impact, purpose and belonging at your organization will pay tangible dividends when it comes to attracting top talent. Equally, being able to repel the wrong cultural fits will ensure that your hiring managers and recruiters do not become overwhelmed and that your candidate experience doesn’t buckle under the pressure.

As Craig Fisher comments, “We must remember that time to fill means nothing if we decimate our good candidate pool in the process with poor candidate experience. These jobs will be somewhat evergreen and you will need the best talent to continue to have an interest in working for your company. The ones who do not get hired will refer their friends and colleagues if we simply communicate well to ensure a good candidate experience.”

A final word

To truly prepare for what’s to come, employers must find a way to integrate their COVID-19 story with the reality of their employer brand and EVP. Collecting stories and tales of how your EVP lives in reality and providing examples via voice-of-the-employee will help you create a smart filter that works to attract and repel talent in equal measure.

In a high volume market, don’t make the assumption that talent will be easy to come by, or that the talent you have is going to stay. Even with new talent coming in, this might not solve all your problems. Focusing on the employee experience and marketing to employees, even during a massive swell in talent attraction, is incredibly important.

Finally, remember this: there’s never been a more socially acceptable time to be vulnerable. Use your harsh realities to effect great change. Be humble enough to talk about the truth, “Here’s where we are, here’s what we’ve learned, here’s what we need to change and here’s why we’re better.”

Follow these with proof points and authentic stories that shine a light on your employees’ version of the truth.

This will be an incredibly valuable opportunity that your organization will not want to miss.

A look ahead at next week’s article

In next week’s article, we’ll round off our series by looking at actionable strategies, solutions and tactics to protect your employer brand legacy in a post-COVID-19 world.

When the race to hire top talent begins, companies with a strong employer brand will get stronger and those without are destined for a painful decline.

To mitigate from falling on the wrong side of this gulf, employers must invest in their employer brand. Packed full of insights and practical ideas, this is one you won’t want to miss.