Remote Recruiting: How to Creatively Close Candidates in 2021

On June 23, Andrew Heywood, Recruiting Manager at Roblox, Danielle Klebanov, Recruiting Manager at Lattice, and Nathalie Grandy, Sr. Tech Recruiter at Gem, joined a fireside chat called Remote Recruiting: How to Creatively Close Candidates in 2021. They discussed the challenges they have seen in hiring since the pandemic started, and how they have experimented with creative ways to reach their hiring goals. 

While they continue to work remotely, Roblox, Lattice, and Gem were all fortunate to experience a hiring uptick in the first half of 2021, which has given them valuable insights and experience in creatively closing candidates. Here are some of the suggestions they discussed for teams who are looking to improve their offer-accept rate. 

Transparent communication with your candidates, including what has worked during the pandemic and what hasn't, is the key to building trust and relationships.

Candidates are moving faster in 2021, so the hiring process might need to pick up speed as well without sacrificing the quality of the candidate experience. "We need to move fast, thoughtfully," Danielle said. "And we always ask candidates, 'what would make you choose Lattice over other companies?" Nathalie agreed with Danielle, " It's important to have honest and transparent communication to set the expectation for both candidates and recruiting teams. We ask candidates what they liked about the process and what they need to close, to help us improve the process and find out what will move candidates."

"We are also transparent about what hasn't worked," Danielle said. "We tried doing virtual happy hours or giant company events. None of them worked on Zoom".

"It shows support." Andrew added, "when we are transparent during the interview process on how the company has adjusted to covid and actions taken to help support employees as well as adjust to this new global environment."

Invite candidates to team-building activities to give them a sense of the company culture.

One of the biggest challenges of remote recruiting is to convey company culture over Zoom. When candidates can't pick up on other interactions between employees during the onsite interview, interviewers and recruiters have to make the extra effort to interact and engage with candidates. 

"We try to set up less formal coffee chats during the interview process just to get to know the candidates' passions and hobbies. " Nathalie said. "And we also tried setting up team activities, like a dumpling-making class and inviting a candidate. It was a great opportunity to give the candidates a sense of our team's culture."

"We also included candidates in the Roblox games events," Andrew said, "And it was always fun."

Get stakeholders, including executives, involved and aligned on a united voice when candidates move from the interview to the offer stage.

Three speakers all said they involve a broader team and leadership during the process. "We use Gem's SOBO (Send-on-behalf-of) feature to send candidates a good luck email the day before the virtual onsite interview to set the stage," Nathalie said. 

"Wow, that's a really cool idea!" Danielle commented, "Maybe we should start doing that. Our executives tend to jump in later in the process."

Andrew added, "Our executives will get involved to help sell candidates if they are moving to an offer stage. And we will also add other team members to get a peer perspective and individuals in finance to walk through the Roblox business and equity questions."

Send creative, personal gifts! It's good to show that you really listen and care about the candidate as a person.

"The cutest thing we have sent to candidates is Lattice onesies because we know the candidate just had a baby." Danielle said. 

"I love the onesie swag!" Nathalie said. "We also love sending gifts to candidates to show them we care. We send coffee or breakfast if the candidate has another interview with a company to make them know that Gem is thinking of them. We had all the dogs of Gem create a celebratory video for a candidate who loved dogs. We also got a candidate a Michigan football signed after learning that he was a huge football fan." 
"Don't be afraid to understand the candidates as much as possible." Andrew commented, "We should try to make each experience consistent, yet tailored to that person."
The fireside chat between Andrew, Danielle, and Nathalie included so much more than the four takeaways we highlighted in this blog post. The entire Remote Recruiting and Creative Closing webinar is available on-demand, and we would love to hear from you if you have any questions or comments.