[vc_row padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px”][vc_column fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/1″][text_output]Last week, we discussed the impacts COVID-19 would have on the tech recruiting industry. Continuing from that, this week we will go further in-depth about the precautions recruiters can take to stay ahead of the competition, and the key role that automation will serve.

With the world in its current frenzy, many are doing all they can to prepare by stocking up on essentials, sometimes to an unnecessary extent. As it turns out, buying a bunch of the same things is not the most effective way to prep, but changing the systems around us is. This goes for the current changes in the tech recruiting industry as well. This article will go over what it takes to be a successful tech recruiting “prepper” and survive the new tech recruiting environment.

Just as COVID-19 will have permanent effects on consumer behavior, it will also induce changes to corporations. The good news for tech recruiters is that tech companies and tech jobs will fare better than most during the recession and subsequent recovery. Analysts at Glassdoor and LinkedIn said, “And tech companies are better positioned than most. The ability of many white-collar tech workers to do their jobs remotely, combined with a surge in demand for many online services among users stuck at home, gives software-oriented companies a huge advantage over the travel industry, restaurants and other sectors.”[/text_output][text_output]Remote work will be the most obvious at first, however this will have a minimal impact on recruiters as many are already working remotely. But as companies worry about losing workers to either quarantine or health or conserving cash during a recession, automation must be looking even better. And according to the Brookings Institute, after recent recessions, corporations have been shown to increase spending on automation. Some companies who were on the automation path prior to COVID-19 will accelerate it.

This is good news/bad news for tech recruiters. The good news is that there will be more demand for tech talent. The bad news that because of the recent slowdown in hiring, recruiting companies have the ability to hit reset. This means companies may shift some aspects of recruiting toward automation.

There have been talks about “the machine” taking jobs from recruiters for a while. But that has largely not happened. This has less to do with technology than the status quo. Companies were too busy hiring to overhaul their talent acquisition operations. With the Coronavirus recession, companies will have a chance to hit reset.

The costs of recruiting has risen steadily over the years. And while the cost of automation may not have made sense five years ago, we may be at the tipping point as AI is getting more accessible while traditional recruiting costs increase.

Recruiters who will do well in this environment are ones who are out-of-the-box sourcers, tech-savvy, and data-driven. With the world in its current lull, now is the time for recruiters to implement new technologies and new ways of recruiting to complement automation. In order to stand out from the crowd, recruiters should start using other channels better-designed for both recruiting and gathering good data from tech workers. A prime example of one of these avenues is GitHub. GitHub has 45 million tech users and it is free, even for recruiters. Our free GitHub tech recruiting ebook outlines all unique values GitHub brings to the table for tech recruiting.  Amidst these huge changes in the world, recruiters can’t follow the herd and keep the same routine of recruiting inefficiently through LinkedIn.

Another site where almost no recruiters venture is Reddit. The most recent Stack Overflow developer research showed that Reddit is the most used social media platform for developers.

45% of developers are actively using Reddit vs 5% for Linkedin. We will cover the ins and outs of recruiting on Reddit in an upcoming article.

The next month or so will be pretty bad for hiring overall. Of course, this is mostly temporary. Coronavirus knocked the whole world off-kilter, including the recruiting industry. While some things will go back to normal, recruiting will need to do a reset, meaning these new systems should start to gain momentum.

As companies hit the reset on their hiring/recruiting, there will be a need for structural changes. Automation was slowly making its way into recruiting already. But after Coronavirus, its use will accelerate and become much more prevalent.

Just like with Coronavirus, there are factors you can control and factors you cannot. You cannot slow down tech recruiting changes, but you can prepare for them. When a disaster strikes, certain things need to be done in order to survive. Be a tech recruiting “prepper.” It’s going to be a long and socially distant ride, but we can get through it.[/text_output][/vc_column][/vc_row]