Virtual recruitment: A guide to remote hiring

Virtual recruitment is becoming increasingly popular, experiencing a rapid rise since the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote working is now the norm for many workers, and many expect to be able to go through a virtual recruitment process when applying for new roles too.

Remote working is here to stay, so it’s time to embrace it. Before 2020, working from home was a move approached with caution by employers. Now, however, our experience of remote working has given us a whole new insight as to its many benefits.

A recent study found a 47% increase in worker productivity since the move to home-working began in 2020. The figures sketch out a whole new future for the working world – one where remote working is not only a valuable part of a company’s employee value proposition (EVP), but a drive for increased worker productivity.

Promoting your company’s forward-thinking approach to remote working can help to attract the best new talent to your business. This means adapting HR policies, workplace benefits, and employee training strategies to suit the complex needs of your remote workforce. It also means embracing virtual recruiting strategies.

What is virtual recruiting?

Virtual recruitment is the process of hiring, interviewing and onboarding new employees remotely. That means there’s often no, or very little, face-to-face, in-person contact during the whole hiring process.

How to recruit remotely

A typical virtual recruitment process would look as follows:

• A candidate sees a job advert online and applies online
• The hirer assesses the application and screens the candidate (possibly using applicant tracking software), before sending out an interview offer via email
• A video interview takes place
• The candidate is provided with feedback or even a job offer via email or video call
• The new hire is onboarded remotely

What are the benefits of virtual recruitment?

There are so many benefits of virtual recruiting, for both the hirer and the candidate.

1. Reduce hiring costs

Virtual recruitment can save both parties time and money during the hiring process, as neither needs to travel or incur additional expenses – this can be particularly costly if companies interview multiple unsuitable candidates. Read more ways to reduce hiring costs.

2. Demonstrate your EVP

For the candidate, offering a virtual recruitment process demonstrates your flexibility as an organisation, supporting your employee value proposition (EVP). What’s more, it means they can fit interviewing around their other commitments, without having to take a day off from their current job, which can arouse suspicion among some employers. When it comes to virtual onboarding, candidates can settle into their new role from home in a familiar surrounding, feeling trusted to get on with their job from day one.

3. Go paperless

Embracing virtual recruiting strategies helps organisations to go paperless for maximum accessibility.

As remote working opportunities have become commonplace for employees across all sectors, this has led to various challenges in storing information for ease of access.

Pursuing paperless hiring means employees can access applicant and HR data from any location, ensuring that recruitment processes remain both smooth and accessible. Embracing HR technology to securely store applicant data, and swapping the filing cabinet for the cloud, are both positive ways of future-proofing your recruitment strategy. Discover the best recruitment software tools for remote hiring and onboarding.

4. Streamline candidate screening

Some perceive virtual recruitment to be a complex challenge. However, with recent advancements in hiring technology, it has just become a whole lot easier.

Video screening is an excellent screening tool and is a great addition to virtual recruitment strategies, as it’s flexible and convenient for both hiring managers and candidates alike.

Plus, with access to an applicant tracking system, you can securely store, manage, and filter candidate information throughout your hiring process – even when recruiting remotely.

The limitations of virtual recruiting

Despite the benefits of virtual recruitment, there are some potential drawbacks to consider:

1. Harder to assess culture fit

When remote hiring, it is more difficult to test whether a candidate suits the culture of your company, as they don’t get to meet current members of the team or explore the workplace environment.

There is the possibility that once the candidate joins, they may not actually fit into the workplace as initially thought, which may result in early departures.

To combat this issue, you can create virtual office tours, meet the team videos, and more, which will showcase your company culture to candidates, even if they’re unable to experience it in person.

2. Impact on candidate experience

Virtual recruiting, as opposed to recruiting in person, could impact the candidate experience, as individuals may not feel as valued or engaged throughout the process. 

One way to prevent any detachment that could come with virtual recruitment is to ensure your video interviews are interactive, two-sided, and as engaging as possible.

How to make your virtual recruitment process a success

There are various steps to consider to ensure your virtual recruitment process is successful. 

Here are our top tips for virtually recruiting:

1. Define your recruitment goals

Before launching your virtual recruitment process, it’s essential to clearly define your ideal candidate. Consider factors such as experience level, qualifications, specific job responsibilities, cultural fit, opportunities for growth, and other key criteria.

Having a clear idea of the ‘perfect’ candidate for the job role will help you create comprehensive job descriptions and decide on the best recruitment platforms for your virtual recruitment.

2. Use the right recruitment platforms

Various recruitment tools can assist with virtual recruitment by making the process streamlined and easier to manage. For example, you may choose to use social media, job boards, or a virtual recruitment agency to assist with your remote recruitment.

Talos ATS can help with virtual recruitment of candidates from start to finish. With video screening and interview tools, virtual recruiting has never been easier.

3. Create compelling job descriptions 

As with in-person recruitment, compelling job descriptions are essential for successful virtual recruitment. 

Additional tools to enhance virtual recruitment include virtual office tours, team introduction videos, and other resources that provide candidates with a clearer understanding of the company’s culture during the virtual interview process.

4. Screen candidates

Once you’ve received enough applications, it’s time to start the screening process. There are various ways to do this virtually; however, video interviewing is perhaps the most popular technique.

5. Communicate with candidates

It is crucial for successful remote hiring that you continuously communicate with your candidates throughout the whole process.

Keeping candidates informed about their progress and the upcoming stages of the virtual hiring process is key to maintaining their engagement until the position is filled.

6. Offer virtual onboarding

Finally, once the position has been filled, you can offer virtual onboarding to help the new employee seamlessly integrate into the business.

How to optimise your EVP for remote working

A strong EVP has always been key to maintaining a successful recruitment strategy. However, in the current climate, it is even more crucial that employers remain in touch with their workers’ likes, dislikes, wants, and needs.

Employees’ expectations are bound to change with time; this is all the more true when working remotely. Shifting expectations require an adaptive HR strategy. If your company fails to meet the wants and needs of its employees, you’ll begin to see engagement levels fall, and staff turnover rates increase – and if you’re planning to use virtual recruitment to fill those gaps, you need to get it right to avoid the same cycle starting again.

It’s therefore critical to regularly review the ins and outs of your recruitment strategy, especially in relation to employee benefits and HR processes.

For successful virtual recruitment, a strong EVP is what will attract the best talent to join your business. Simply put, it is your opportunity to express digitally to candidates why they should work for you over any other employer. When recruiting for work-from-home positions, it’s crucial that your workplace benefits, salary estimations, and HR processes are adapted to meet their needs.

To easily identify and optimise your EVP, request a free demo of 360’s Talos Engage software today.

How to recruit remotely with Talos ATS

Want an easier way to hire new talent remotely? Introducing Talos ATS for all your virtual recruitment needs.

With Talos’ ATS, you gain access to an intuitive applicant tracking system, a next-generation advertising suite, and a virtual interview room – all from one user-friendly dashboard! This allows you to store applicant data securely, with ease of access for your team, while attracting, screening, interviewing, and hiring talent completely remotely.

Talos puts virtual recruitment at your fingertips, allowing you to maintain a strong hiring strategy – no matter the challenges.

Make virtual recruitment easy

Talos ATS includes:

• Intuitive applicant tracking system
• Video screening and interview tools
• Advertising management
• Automated email/SMS comms
• Automated progression of your strongest applicants
• Remote onboarding tools