On improving human connection while WFH and on VR for recruiters

Episode nineteen of The Tea on Recruiting is ready-to-serve! The video, as well as its transcript, can be found in the section below. Enjoy!

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Transcript

Hello! Today we’ll talk about whether you should put all your money on VR for recruitment. And then we’ll share some clues on how to help improve your connectedness while working from home. Welcome back to the Tea on Recruiting, where we share insightful and thought-provoking content that can help you shape your recruiting career!

Let’s check out the first article I picked.

The Role of Virtual Reality in Recruitment

It’s hard, and sometimes even impossible to meet your job applicants in person, nowadays. Tough times call for smart solutions. We’ve read “The Role of Virtual Reality in Recruitment.” What are the possible upsides of introducing VR in your hiring process?

• VR allows the candidate to see the role. The downsides? Candidates would need to install the app, buy the headset (or cardboard), and you’d have to ask them to watch the VR video… Which could turn into the most boring VR movie ever.

• VR allows the candidate to see the office. Virtual office tours rarely show the true atmosphere one feels when surrounded by their coworkers. The staged reality you often see in office tour videos is all clean desks and warm smiles, which can differ noticeably from the same company’s Glassdoor reviews. VR could, therefore, be very useful… But not until the time when we go back to the office.

• VR Interviews? No, thank you. If two avatars interviewing each other doesn’t sound de-humanizing and ineffective enough to you, then perhaps that’s the sign I’ve been looking for: We are living in a black mirror episode!

Ok, back to reality. Order!!!! The verdict’s in. Investing in VR right now would be, according to the author, like “throwing money from the window.”  VR has a future in recruiting, but it’s not near. AR might be more appealing. It’ll be more impactful for both your employer branding and your Candidate Experience. But you might want to hold your horses for now.

Are you ready? It’s time for our second article!

Why one of market’s hottest tech companies says WFH needs a better connection

Do you like working from home? The odds are, you do. But are you starting to feel alienated? Since March 2020, Databricks has been conducting internal surveys to monitor their employees’ happiness. The results were very positive until January 2021, but the almost-one-year of remote work started impacting their employees’ level of connectedness.

We’ve read “Why one of the market’s hottest tech companies says WFH needs a better connection?”. Under the circumstances, connectedness takes effort. Here’s what they focused on at Databricks – I hope you’ll find it inspiring:

Number one: More structured, inclusive, and engaging interview and onboarding processes. They structured their employee trainings and explained to their new talent how to integrate into the company culture, analyzing the impact of their efforts one week and one month into the onboarding process.

Point number two: They made a continuous investment in virtual intern programs, leveraging WFH to turn their small grad community into a very tight network, through improv classes, game nights, storytelling workshops, and so on. They also started studying ways to access a larger and more diverse grad pool now that travel capacity doesn’t have to affect their recruiting anymore.

Three: They invested in their employees’ mental health. You can also diversify your team bonding activities to improve connectedness. For instance, here’s a nice idea: Databricks created a Family Cookbook, for which 300+ employees shared their favorite recipes – it sparked a conversation.

Now onto the…

CandE Crash

The more barbaric your treatment of candidates, the more demonic their reviews on your Glassdoor page.

Shoutout to a company I won’t name. One screening interview with a recruiter. Three phone calls with executives, hiring manager included. A good in-person interview with the company’s CTO and the VP of engineering. A successful, brief coding test. And then… a BS excuse. Let’s hear the candidate’s thoughts:

“I could never even begin to prove it, but my opinion is that I was a victim of age discrimination by this company. Everyone I saw when I was in the office was 15-20 years younger than I, and once they saw me in person, this lame excuse regarding the “internal” candidate and the technical areas suddenly popped up.”

Got something to say about this? Drop a comment below, we’d love to pick your brains. Help us get better at helping you get better: with your help!

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