Virtual recruiting just might be one of the fastest growing technology categories of the year, thanks to a global pandemic that forced us to become social distancing experts. Yet at the same time, it opened our eyes to see the true benefits of virtual. Making connections with candidates and building relationships through technology can seem like a daunting challenge but the right tools make it easy and convenient, while improving recruiting outcomes and experiences for both recruiters and job seekers. There are a lot of different ways to do virtual recruiting—especially as new vendors enter the market—and it’s important to have a good understanding of your options before you adopt a new tool.
If you’re still unsure whether virtual career fairs are a good fit for your organization’s recruiting strategy or you’ve decided to take the leap but aren’t sure what to look for in a recruiting solution, read on to learn more about the difference between a virtual hiring event platform and a virtual interview tool. Once equipped with this knowledge, you’ll be ready to make an informed decision about your organization’s next step into the future of virtual recruiting.
What is a virtual hiring event platform?
A virtual hiring event platform is a full-service recruiting tool with robust features that help you plan and promote events, engage with job seekers, enhance your employer brand, seamlessly follow up, and ultimately provide an immersive and interactive experience for each candidate. A virtual hiring event platform allows organizations to educate job seekers, with an interactive lobby of virtual booths that house video presentations, Q&A sessions, and on-demand chat with live recruiters and hiring managers. A powerful platform like this also offers features to continue communicating with candidates after the event, by requesting feedback on their experience and relaying information about next steps, such as follow-up interviews and job offer information.
What is a virtual interview tool?
A virtual interview tool supports text conversations, and sometimes audio and video chats as well. Unlike a virtual hiring event platform, it lacks the ability to offer a comprehensive candidate experience. While some virtual interview tools advertise a candidate lobby, that is often realized as a blank black screen that candidates see as they await their turn for a recruiter chat. It’s not difficult to understand why tools like this might have higher abandon rates than a robust virtual hiring event platform, as candidates are likely to drop out of the queue when there is nothing else within the platform to keep them engaged while they are waiting. Virtual interview tools also typically do not have many, if any, of the communication features that help recruiters stay in touch with candidates after the fact, another big missed opportunity.
What’s the best tool for virtual recruiting?
Of course, the answer to this question ultimately depends on your needs and priorities. Most organizations that have successful virtual recruiting programs prefer to use tools that do as much of the heavy lifting as possible, freeing up their recruiting staff to focus their time and energy on having conversations and building relationships, rather than being tied up with administrative work. While virtual interview tools can be a great fit for individual or group interviews that are scheduled in advance, they don’t tend to work as well for hosting events where the number of participants may be high (or somewhat unknown). This is in part because they don’t have features to lessen the workload on the recruiter, and also because they simply aren’t designed for the flow of online traffic that a virtual hiring event platform can handle. For employers that want to provide an engaging candidate experience that builds trust and attracts top talent, a more comprehensive virtual hiring event platform is the logical choice.
Does a virtual hiring event platform provide a better candidate experience?
From an interactive lobby to thorough follow-up communication, a virtual hiring event platform delivers the type of candidate experience many employers (and job seekers) crave. The best virtual hiring event platforms offer tons of other features that make the events top notch, such as a quality mobile experience and the ability to easily pivot from a text-based conversation to a live video interview in a single click. Although virtual hiring event platforms allow recruiters to host multiple text conversations simultaneously, the ease of interaction helps make candidates feel special, and leads to a foundation of trust and improves engagement throughout the recruiting process.
Can a virtual hiring event platform help reduce abandon rates?
We already mentioned how virtual interview tools without an interactive lobby can increase abandon rates, but it’s worth revisiting the topic. One key metric to virtual recruiting success is engaging with as many candidates as possible, to help ensure you’re able to vet quality talent and make the best hires for your organization. If you lose their attention before you can even screen them, your entire recruiting process suffers. The solution is to give job seekers what they want. They come to virtual recruiting events with a lot of questions, and if they can’t immediately enter a chat with a recruiter to ask those questions, you need to provide some other options. For instance, job seekers often want to know what the job is really like. With a virtual hiring event platform, you can add a booth for employee testimonials or a ‘day in the life’ video to give them an inside look at the position they are vying for. Virtual interview tools don’t offer opportunities to satisfy these needs, instead leaving job seekers waiting in a black abyss with nothing to do but question how important their time really is to your organization.
The future of virtual recruiting relies on candidate experience
Virtual recruiting gained a lot of popularity in the wake of the pandemic this year and it’s quickly become an essential part of talent acquisition for organizations in nearly every industry, across the country. As more virtual recruiting tools hit the market and job seekers become more familiar with virtual interviews and virtual career fairs, the quality of the candidate experience will become an even more crucial differentiator for employers of choice. When choosing the best virtual recruiting tool for your organization, it’s essential to prioritize the candidate experience, and adopt the tools that will deliver the kind of experience that conveys your brand identity and integrity.
