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During this difficult time surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, many organisations across the globe are resulting to a ‘freeze in recruitment’ or are struggling to keep their doors open with many staff being made redundant.
It comes with no surprise that a global pandemic like COVID-19 can affect many things in the world including the recruitment industry. However, the question on everybody’s minds is, ‘should companies halt their business growth plans during this period?’
Being a specialist Pharmaceutical and Life Science headhunting firm, Mantell Associates are always networking with top professionals across the pharmaceutical industry across both Europe and the US who have shared their thoughts on the outbreak and why they continue to hire for their business.
It is expected that during the periods of ‘self-isolation’ and ‘lockdowns’, cases should rapidly decrease due to the COVID-19 virus not being spread between individuals and we should have everything under control in 8-9 weeks. Although we have 8-9 weeks until this is under control, our clients are not looking to ‘freeze recruitment’ due to the fact they want to be ahead of the curve and beat their competition to the top talent on the market. In fact, now is a great time to be speaking to top talent as they can provide even more flexibility and often open to conversations.
Alongside this, candidates will generally have a notice period of 3 months – meaning that once the candidate has handed their resignation in to their current employer, they will be joining your business just in time for the ‘market boom’ once this pandemic is over to put your business ahead of the competition.
Often face to face meetings are used to mark body language and genuine connection between the Hiring Manager and the candidate.
Another question that employers may have is ‘can I hire without a face to face meeting?’ The answer to this is simple – of course you can. Often, face to face meetings are used to mark body language and genuine connection between the Hiring Manager and the candidate. However, Hiring Managers will monitor body language in face to face meetings that sometimes will mislead them in regards to what the candidate is actually talking about – meaning that Hiring Managers will often be persuaded to hire someone with better body language rather than technical/professional ability.
What Hiring Managers can do instead is a simple conference Skype or Zoom video call with the relevant people. This way, you can still monitor body language, however also focusing on how they communicate with others within the team, their technical/professional ability and the ability to fit in with your business.
With that in mind, now is absolutely the time to be hiring top professionals in your business that could essentially put you in front of your competition on the backend of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Here at Mantell Associates we are often networking with top professionals and are always happy to support and answer any questions you have regarding interview processes and offer general market knowledge.