For some, the work must go on. In these troubling times due to COVID-19, many businesses are coming to a halt, especially when it comes to taking on new recruits, with many employees being let go.

But that’s not the case for all. For some, the business demand has only increased but at a rate that many are struggling to meet.

And although the government has advised for the public to social distance themselves, and work from home, those who are ‘key workers’ are having to pull together to work quite possibly harder than they’ve ever had to work before.

This means that some sectors are now hiring thousands of temporary staff members in a bid to carry on serving the public.

Many of these sectors include:

• Health and Social Care
• Education and Childcare
• Public Services
• Transport
• Local and National Government
• Public Safety and National Security
• Utilities, Communication and Financial Services
• Foods and Necessary Goods

This need to recruit is to help give financial stability to those struggling, to control business demand, and compensate for the members of staff who have needed to self-isolate.

Some of these sectors are seeing their applications almost triple, and those who are successful will start almost instantly, cutting out most of the normal recruitment process to hire staff as fast as possible.

But for many of these sectors, the process isn’t quite so simple.

Sectors like Health and Social Care need people with a specialist skillset.

To support this complication, the Government have put an appeal out for care workers who have recently retired to temporarily come out of retirement during the pandemic.

Eventually the government hopes to get an antibody test to members of the public which results will show if they’ve produced antibodies against the virus.

This means that those who have had the virus, and successfully fought it off will be very unlikely to catch it again.

Those people could then safely go back to work in a bid to help repair the economy sooner rather than later.

Although there is a lot of uncertainty for what’s to come, we’re lucky to be living in a decade where remote communication is easier than ever thanks to technology.

So, don’t worry, there are plenty of quick and easy tools to use to assist if you still need to recruit.

To help, we thought it may be a good idea to put some quick advice together for free and easy ways to help meet the demand.

Video

Video is the perfect way to have a quick, personal experience with someone before you hire them, cutting out the need to be face to face. There are lots of free tools available like Skype, Facetime and WhatsApp, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t have any video interviewing technology.

Digital Messaging

Make use of SMS and email systems, especially those that can help to automate your messaging process and speed up the communication between multiple candidates.

Social Media

Social media is a great platform to share your jobs and connect with candidates. Many will be on these sites daily looking for available opportunities, so make sure you’re posting on there and get your staff members involved to share.

Google Jobs

Try to get your jobs listed in Google Jobs. Post them on your website if this is integrated, use jobs boards that automatically do it for you or manually upload them directly. Google is one of the most used search engines, and any job-related search terms are automatically listed at the top of the page so having them posted there will get your vacancies more exposure.

Jobs Boards

Post your jobs on free Jobs boards like Indeed and Adzuna. You don’t necessarily have to use paid jobs boards to be able to reach job seekers.

Referrals

Utilise your current staff members by asking if there’s anyone they could refer. It’s more than likely they know people who are struggling to find work, and there’s a better chance they would be both reliable and suitable to do the job.

If you’re struggling to recruit at this time and would like some more detailed advice, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone.

Recruitive are providing expert recruitment consultant services on a short- and longer-term basis. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch.