5 Reasons to be Grateful it’s not Business as Usual in Recruitment by Fiona Kesby

 Our recruitment team lives by this promise: “Do whatever it takes so someone can have a job and feed their families.”

This pandemic is changing the way the world works.

Here’s another way of looking at it: This pandemic has created massive opportunities for making the world of work much better.

For recruiters, this is literally a life-changing time. 

I had a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how different this year has been for recruitment when our friends at Mynimo jobs site invited me to speak at the first of their virtual events series, Mynimo Insights.  

First: We’ve learned to problem-solve faster.

One of the first things we did in the www.go-va.com.au tribe was to change our weekly department meetings into quick daily huddles. This was great for transparency as well as for staying connected. 

As much as we enjoy using tools like Zoom, a video conference that takes place only once a week doesn’t make up for the interactions (and flashes of inspiration or encouragement) we can get from meeting face to face. 

Switching from weekly meetings to daily huddles gave us more opportunities to find out how team members were doingーand to clear a path for them faster, which led to quicker and more effective problem-solving.

Second: We’ve given job candidates (and current team members as well) the flexibility they needed.

Long before this pandemic, we’ve asked job candidates to create their profiles online and to visit the office only once their initial interviews were arranged. 

Once this year’s quarantine rules took effect, in-person interviews were out of the question. 

We’ve found that with empathetic listening and focused attention, our recruiters can make phone and online interviews work just as well as in-person ones. 

Even after the rules are eased and it gets easier to move around, we may keep offering the option of doing interviews online. That’ll spare both our candidates and recruiters from having to endure traffic jams, and they won’t have to worry about the risks of taking public transportation. 

We’ve also given qualified candidates more time to complete their pre-employment requirements. It’s not the easiest thing to get a physical exam and lab tests when clinic hours are so limited. 

Third: It’s a great time for reflecting on how we communicate and for understanding ourselves and our teams better.

There will be days productivity won’t be at the level your business needs. And that’s OK. It’s an extremely challenging time for everyone, which means that there will be days even your stars will wobble a little bit.

Find out why. Ask: What can I do to help you? Have you received the training you needed?

Likewise, you may be pleasantly surprised when some members of the team step up and exceed your (and their own) expectations. Celebrate each win, yes. And then again, find out why. What was in place for them to deliver even better results than usual?

Fourth: Make time for self-careーnot “even in a pandemic” but especially in a pandemic.

You cannot lead at your best if you feel depleted. 

So before you find yourself struggling with the situation, practice self-care. Self-care, as I’ve told our www.go-va.com.au team before, is not self-indulgence. Self-care is part of self-discipline.

This requires tough-mindedness, a deep personal understanding of your priorities, and respect for both yourself and the people you choose to spend your life with. Get enough rest, book in time for exercise, eat well, talk things out (we need to keep our physical distance, not our social or emotional distance), and keep on learning.

Fifth: One day, we’ll look back at all this with gratitude and a deep sense of accomplishment.

It’s important that we all work together at this time. 

Our challenges are massive. 

So are the emerging opportunities.

One thing that has helped is by remembering those times that we used to think would be a situation of scarcity yet instead turned out to be periods of opportunity and growth instead. 

A few years ago, when GO-VA served as an incubator for WorldRemit, we accepted a challenge to fill a large number of roles quickly. Then we realised All Saints’ Day weekend in November was coming up! Everyone (recruiters, team members, all those wonderful job candidates we wanted to attract) would be going home to their hometowns or to different provinces for a break. 

And then two of our recruiters ended up in hospital, being treated for food poisoning. 

Despite all that, we got the job done. Now we simply think of it as our version of an early Christmas miracle.

This pandemic is tough. That’s why it always helps us to remember our purpose of helping businesses to scale and helping people to exceed. This starts with providing jobs. 

More than ever, people need the jobs we have because every family has relatives out of work. With every challenge we overcome, our reserves of patience and enlightening experience get deeper. We become a bit more confident and a lot more grateful about what we can do together.

 And in the future, we will remember the COVID-19 miracle stories that got us through this pandemic. 

Thanks to the Mynimo team for this opportunity! To see a video and what our www.go-va.com.au team wrote about the event, visit here, please.

Thanks in advance for sharing your suggestions on how we can make our stories better!