The recruitment landscape has been rapidly changing, especially post the pandemic. While remote work and virtual interviews trends are on the rise, businesses have to practice empathy to understand changing attitudes and behaviors of their people.
Understanding how employees feel during work from home is as important as managing their productivity. Keeping yourself in your employees’ shoes for any situation will help you tackle the issues in the right way as an organization. In the same way, empathy is essential when recruiting a candidate. Empathy is not just a crucial leadership skill but a crucial recruiting skill.
``Without empathy, it is not possible to get the best from your team, so for this reason, it is the key to everything.``
~ Satya Nadella
The pandemic didn’t come with unprecedented challenges alone. It brought with it tremendous stress and anxiety for professionals due to layoffs, thinking about their careers and the future of work. Hence, it has become crucial for recruiters to empathize with candidates.
Let us see some more reasons why empathy is so important in recruitment and how to make the recruitment process more empathetic in this article.
Five Big Reasons Why Empathy is an Essential Recruiting Skill
Empathy Makes Recruiting Teams More Intelligent.
When you make empathy a core part of your recruiting process, your HR teams become stronger from within. Practicing empathy means boosting interaction among recruiters and hiring managers by genuinely understanding and recognizing that they may be dealing with some challenges and providing them flexibility if required.
When you are open to communicating with each other and trying to solve challenges within the team with empathy, the teams are likely to make more intelligent decisions that bring value to the organization.
Empathy Reduces the Chances of Missing Out Good Candidates.
Time-to-hire was a significant factor that most recruiting teams focussed on before the pandemic. Although speed still matters now, the primary focus shifted to quality and high-volume hiring. Recruiters now need to be more patient and kind with candidates when they take a longer time to respond.
In today’s recruiting landscape, delay in response does not always mean candidates are not interested in the role. There may be various reasons, such as stress or forgetting to get back due to busy work or home life. Therefore, being empathetic, waiting for a few days, and following up will help your company not miss out on the right talent.
Empathy Makes the Recruiting Process Less Stressful.
Hiring from home or the office when your candidates are home is quite stressful. It simply needs phone screening and a setup for virtual interviews. Traveling along for an interview is no longer a factor as they can actually attend during working hours.
People working from home are overworking with no balance between work and life. Many people may not be available for interviews at your convenient time. Being empathetic and asking candidates for the right time to speak or interview will tackle the challenge with ease. You can easily make the process less stressful by getting into the candidates’ shoes.
Empathy Boosts Interaction and Hence Engagement.
For most candidates, it might be the first virtual interview; hence it’s completely natural to see them nervous. Unlike traditional face-to-face interviews, they may feel conversations are more transactional. One of the practical ways to deal with such a situation is to be open and allow them to express their challenges honestly.
Show empathy and let candidates understand that you care about them and their situation. Recruiters need to actively listen to every conversation to prevent their minds from wandering or multitasking as they’re sitting in their homes. Practicing empathy helps you focus on actually listening to your candidates rather than quickly jumping into the summary.
It Impacts Employer Brand Greatly.
According to a LinkedIn survey, 63% of talent professionals say empathy could play a crucial role in shaping their employer brands. How you treat candidates during these challenging times impacts how greatly they see your employer’s brand. Candidates will remember how you treat them and talk about it with their friends. This applies to those candidates who didn’t get the job.
This is why it is vital to engage with candidates throughout their hiring journey with you and update their interview status timely. This action impresses the candidates who contribute to your employer’s brand even though they are not hired.
Bottom Line
Recruiting industry is one of those industries that’s ever-evolving. Empathy is a crucial skill that will never go out of style, and every recruiting professional should adopt it. Making empathy a must-have skill for your team turns out to be a great recruiting strategy that helps master the future of recruiting.
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