Why hiring in 2021 must see new strategies

Chung Jaan Hao, COO of Pulsifi, explains and highlights what organisations need to take into consideration when planning their hiring for 2021.
By: | November 27, 2020

By Chung Jaan Hao, COO, Pulsifi

The hiring space has changed tremendously since early 2020 – from a candidate-driven market to an unemployment nightmare.

Employers had to furlough and lay off employees during the pandemic to drastically cut costs. Now however, as people and the economy adapt to the new normal, many employers are rehiring, and hiring for new skill sets.

According to The Adecco Group’s survey, 86.7% of organisations are planning to back-fill roles in less than a year.

While this is a positive sign, one thing is certain, hiring in 2021 won’t be anything as close to what it was pre-pandemic.

For starters, the unemployment rate is much higher than it was in early 2020. The pandemic has brought certain industries to its knees, forcing lots of people to find work in a completely different industry. As a result, newbies, industry veterans, and even people from different industries would all be scrambling for the same jobs. We are seeing candidate volumes 50-100% higher.

In addition, the pandemic accelerated digital transformation and business model evolution, reminding organisations of the importance of traits like resilience, adaptability, learning mindset and culture fit in their employees.

The burden falls on the organisation to filter through more applicants than before, and be more selective to really find the “gems” among the  candidates. However, the hiring process in many organizations cannot easily achieve this.

Here’s why.

When candidates apply for a job, you’d logically filter out the ones that don’t have the right skill set – based on keywords, years of experience, and perhaps get through an assessment.

The ones with the right skills set would then be called in for an interview. Here you’d assess their softer traits. Mostly, you’d have to answer the following questions. Do they have the right attitude? Are they a culture-fit? Do they have the right personality for the job?

Based on all these considerations, a decision for a hire would be made. But how much of this process is based on gut feel, subjectivity or even biases?

This process may work when you’re hiring 1 out of a pool of 10 candidates for a few jobs. However, not the same can be said when it’s 50,100, or even 1,000 candidates per job for many jobs.

And that’s where Pulsifi’s People Data Platform comes in.

With Pulsifi’s People Data Platform, you could get candidates to directly apply, upload their CVs, complete psychometric assessments, and even complete a video interview, all in one platform. Our platform also integrates to Applicant Tracking Systems like SAP SuccessFactors.

The platform unifies all these various data points and runs them through a series of algorithms to generate a single “Fit Score” for each candidate. The Fit Score encompasses hard skills, soft traits and other aspects, and is a prediction of how well the candidate fits the role and is likely to perform. The algorithms learn from how employees actually perform in the job to improve predictions and selection. We help customers like Nestlé, Heineken and Singtel achieve over 90% accuracy with these predictions.

You also save time by simply reviewing a smaller list of candidates with higher Fit Scores, and interviewing only candidates that have the highest potential of being converted into good employees. Our customers enjoy up to 70% reduction in hiring process manhours.

The pandemic thrust the HR function to the forefront. Predictive Analytics can elevate the strategic value of HR, if you choose to take advantage of it.

To see a full list of benefits and features, and the various ways you could leverage Pulsifi’s People Data Platform to transform and elevate your HR processes, click here.