Remote hiring and hurried hiring – December’s recruitment trends

December 14th, 2020 | Industry News

A survey into the key trends we can expect in recruiting in the year ahead has generated responses from 20 countries and 15 industries. The most significant result was the discovery that COVID-19 has changed the interviewing and recruitment processes for nearly everybody. Nearly 80% of those who responded said that their processes were not completely remote. Recruitment software has obviously both driven and responded to this trend and new technologies are being used, and added, on a more or less weekly basis. Recruiting software than can manage the applicant tracking process is benefitting both recruitment agencies and HR departments, as it allows them to post vacancies, handle responses, shortlist candidates, conduct video interviews and even onboard recruits. SAAS recruitment agencies have an added benefit – they allow consultants to work remotely, so that they can stay in touch with clients and candidates without putting any body at risk.

Rushed recruitment

Many employers are pushing through recruitment strategies to bring overseas staff into the UK before 31 December to avoid paying sponsorship fees. The fear is that EU nationals coming to work in the UK may need to be sponsored, which in turn requires the employer to become a registered sponsor, but if they arrive before 31 Dec, they have six months to apply for free residency under the EU Settlement scheme.

Of course, COVID-19 has made this much more complicated, as travel and quarantine issues put delays into already tight deadlines. The best recruitment CRM is allowing recruiters to stay in touch with candidates, responding to changes in policy or government guidelines as they happen and keeping candidates informed and clients confident. Hospitality and social care have been most reliant on EU labour, and also those who have been hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. Many of them have had to put hiring on hold, and furlough staff. For these organisations, sponsorship costs may be exorbitant and their best hope is to recruit and relocate personnel before the deadline. Once the deadline is reached, recruitment management software will need to be sophisticated enough to record arrival dates of overseas workers to determine if those people must be sponsored or can take the EU Settlement scheme route.