The world is fast changing! Technological advancement, globalization, and changing demographics were seen to be the factors bringing about this change. However, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic is what accelerated this trend, causing a big shift in the way companies, particularly in Singapore, operate. This shift has been so sudden and dramatic that it left the corporate world in a kind of a haywire situation, with professionals confused and unsure of its impact on their careers, roles, and businesses. Worst of all, the pandemic did put recruitment to an abrupt halt. Only a few companies were hiring, as in fact, most of them were laying their stuff off. But with the vaccines now available, 2021 promises to be a recovery year with some level of normalcy expected to return. However, given that the landscape businesses will be returning to is completely different, the way these companies carry out their activities is also expected to be different. Here is how the hiring process is expected to look like come 2021:

Reducing your average hiring time

Hiring is expected to accelerate and top talents will get quickly snapped up by businesses looking to ride the recovery wave. So, businesses will need to ensure that they have a strong pool of talent, where they can just tap into when they are ready to hire, significantly reducing the time to hire and also avoid candidates fall offs during the recruitment process.

Increase in virtual hiring

Companies in Singapore have been dabbling in virtual hiring, through video interviews and assessments. However, 2020 saw a rapid rise in the adoption of virtual hiring via live and asynchronous video interviews as well as remote assessments. Now, this trend is likely to grow as we head into the future. As a matter of fact, a recent survey by LinkedIn indicated that 81% of talent professionals expect that virtual hiring will continue even beyond 2021.

Embracing diversity

We have to admit that diversity plays a critical role in better business performance, pushing innovation forward, and also having a better understanding of your consumers. Despite this, diversity still seems to elude many companies as most of them still struggle with it. However, in 2021, embracing diversity is expected to play a critical role when filling up job positions. Doing this will not only ensure that you will get the right person for the job, but will also go a long way in helping businesses boost the size and quality of their pool of talents.   

Businesses will no longer be waiting for candidates to apply

Employers will seek to edge competitors by exploring new sourcing channels to have better access to their targeted talent pools. Also, given that they will be competing for the same talent, chances are that they will be attracting passive talent for their roles, which means that they will be relying on the right recruitment tools to find quality talent and proactively reach out to them, instead of waiting for them to apply.

After all, it’s 2021, the year of change, so you can expect much more than this.