Remote Hiring – How to Attract Top Sales and Marketing Talent
While many organizations hired remotely prior to 2020, the pandemic dramatically accelerated the adoption of remote recruiting practices – forever changing the way we assess and hire talent.
For HR and hiring managers, the shift to remote hiring, especially for key sales and marketing roles, has ushered in a host of fresh challenges that make landing the ideal candidate more daunting than ever.
How should your organization adapt? What are the secrets to success? And is there an upside to recruiting remotely? In a recent interview, Executive Senior Partner Haden Bohannon shared his insights and best practices for attracting top sales and marketing talent when you can’t meet candidates face to face.
Look for the silver lining.
While you may miss some of the nuances of in-person interviewing, platforms like Zoom make it easy to schedule virtual interviews. These remote interviews afford you multiple benefits:
- Cost savings. Virtual hiring can save you thousands on candidate expenses like airfare and hotel accommodations.
- Faster hiring. A well-orchestrated remote process can also speed hiring by eliminating delays in the interview process. Before the pandemic, the time from initial candidate engagement to hire frequently took longer than three months. Thanks to digital tools and improved processes, Lucas Group has reduced that time to six to eight weeks.
- Less candidate drop-off. The best talent may be entertaining multiple offers, so shortening time-to-hire helps maintain momentum and protect promising candidate from being lured away by your competitors.
- Enhanced confidentiality. If you need to confidentially replace an underperforming employee, or if your ideal candidate is gainfully employed (and doesn’t want to jeopardize their current job), remote hiring eliminates the need to “tiptoe around” the interview process.
Adopt best practices in remote hiring to improve your results.
Remote recruiting is faster, less expensive and can even yield better talent. And it’s likely here to stay, even after social distancing ends. But how do you make it work?
- Sell your opportunity. Great candidates, especially passive job seekers, won’t be interested in your organization or role unless you pique their curiosity. Sales professionals and executives are particularly sophisticated when it comes to vetting new career opportunities. They want to know what distinguishes your job over the long term, both in terms of growth and financial reward.
- Create virtual equivalents for in-person processes. For example, consider replacing a day of traditional individual and departmental interviews with shorter Zoom conversations, scheduled back-to-back.
- Partner with a qualified recruiter. An executive recruiting firm like Lucas Group leverages our team’s experience, subject matter expertise and talent network to quickly identify and refer your ideal candidates.
Looking for more remote hiring advice?
Watch the full interview here or connect with a Lucas Group recruiter today.