Benefits & Challenges of Virtual vs. In-person Recruitment

Since the COVID-19 season, many organizations were forced to conduct virtual interviews through Skype, Google Meet, and other video meeting platforms, to maintain social distancing and curb the spread of the virus. But, this form of recruitment is been highly adopted worldwide.

An article by Greg Lewis, content marketing manager at LinkedIn stated that 81 per cent of the talent professionals agree that virtual recruiting will continue post-COVID-19 too. In addition, 70 per cent of talent professionals say that virtual recruiting will be the new standard.¹

In this article, we discuss the key benefits and challenges, experienced by human resources (HR) professionals, of virtual vs. in-person recruitment.

Benefits of Virtual Recruitment

Schedule an interview online

Virtual recruitments being conducted through online video meeting properties can help you as a talent professional to schedule interviews on the go. This way, you automatically allow candidates to be interviewed at their own convenience and time.

Makes recruitment sessions more interactive

Video meeting online platforms and applications is making it easy for a candidate to share their work, and portfolio during the call. This way, you automatically allow the candidate to express briefly and perform confidently.

Time-saving for multiple rounds of interviews

An organization that conducts multiple rounds of interviews including the HR round, technical round, and final round can benefit from a virtual recruitment strategy. You may not want a stress a candidate by conducting all rounds on the same day, allowing them to perform those rounds on different days at their own convenience. For example, creative personals would like to perform their technical round late evenings or early mornings whatever suits them best to ensure a complete focus.

Key Challenges of Virtual Recruitment

Internet Connection Issues

With virtual recruitment being dependent on internet technology for talent professionals and candidates both, chances of disconnection or low connectivity issues may rise.

Bad Meeting Link

You as an HR professional may have invited a potential candidate for an interview, by sharing an online video meeting link. There are chances, you may miss checking the meeting links auto-expiration feature (for ex. links get expired in 24 hours) which may lead to a bad meeting link at the time of the interview.

The major benefit of In-person Recruitment

Exposure to work culture

One of the main benefits of an in-person recruitment method is your potential candidate gets a chance to know more about the company’s happenings on a regular day. This automatically allows them to understand more about your company culture and meet relevant staff members.

The major challenge of In-person Recruitment

Lack of HR professionals during a rush of interviews

If there are multiple job openings, there will be multiple candidates who may be called by you or directly land at your organization for an interview. A single talent professional will end up making candidates wait for long for their interview round which may reduce their energy level and motivation, both leading to low performance.

Closing up

The COVID-19 pandemic season has surely reduced the traditional method of the recruitment process, however, it has also highlighted the many benefits of virtual recruitment. So, in case of a job vacancy rush, a virtual interview can help interview multiple candidates in less time, while an in-person recruitment process can be helpful in case of a few job vacancy requirements.

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