Is Virtual the New Reality?

Is Virtual the New Reality?

Josh Winright
Emerging Tech Business Partner

We’ve long had tools to help the recruitment process be more efficient in times where we may not have the capability to do everything in person.  Tools such as DocuSign remove the need for in-person wet signatures on documents and applications and HireVue gives you the ability for the face to face interview without having to potentially fly across the country to meet your new boss.  But with the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020, what if virtual is the new reality?

Our tech lab as always been looking at the future of talent and the HR tech landscape, but with the recent impacts caused by COVID-19, the need for future technology has been accelerated across the market.  This has been the catalyst to redesign the entire recruitment process to have little resemblance to how it was before the pandemic.   

Or those job and career fairs that we travel to throughout the year, especially in the summer, is it really necessary to be on-site or is there a virtual option?  Have you ever seen a virtual lobby for a job or career fair?! Today’s virtual job fair platforms offer lobbies to congregate, rooms for training and separate rooms for interviews or more specific questions.  Candidates can also visit different booths to learn about culture, benefits, positions and locations from the comfort of their own home.  And your job fair Reps can still engage individually, but virtually, which still makes those job fairs personable. If you ever played the Sims growing up, imagine taking your little Sim to a job fair and walking around…it’s just like that.

Virtual recruitment is becoming our new reality.  We have the ability through tools like Glider.ai to assess our candidates virtually, while sharing screens to see how they build code…and it tracks the movement of your head and eyes to see if you are moving away from the main screen to help reduce the concern of cheating or copying code.  A Hiring Manager can virtually watch them build code, without being in the room with them.  No more worrying that the person you are hiring, might have someone taking the interview for them, and you hiring someone who really doesn’t know how to code.

Have you had a meeting scheduled with someone at Pontoon and Evie has helped coordinate everyone’s calendars? Evie is actually a VIRTUAL scheduling assistant, and until today, I bet you didn’t know she wasn’t an actual human assistant! I’ve heard multiple vendors refer to Evie as if she was real, talking about how great she did scheduling around everyone’s calendar, planning the meeting and even helping to reschedule if needed. 

And onboarding.  One of the last but most critical steps in the recruitment process. Traditionally there are papers to chase, backgrounds checks and drug screens to complete. In response the remote proximity of both candidate and hiring teams, we’ve created Pontoon On, a virtual onboarding tool that enables every step in the onboarding process to be done remotely. Pontoon On is created with DPA (digital process automation) technology underpinning the entire onboarding process and using this technology have seen talent starting their new positions 1 to 2 days faster than the traditional onboarding processes and models.

You see – while the pandemic is changing the way we work and has required a shift to virtual work, there are numerous technologies available that can and do help the recruitment process. Our Pontoon Tech Lab is more than happy to share the tools mentioned above and more to you to help ease the stress of these unknown times.  We can help you meet the right people, virtually, and help you fill those reqs!

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