Brands Should Prepare Their Hiring Strategies for the Future of Recruitment

Editor’s note: This piece is part of our Columnist Network series, which explores the tactical thoughts and actions from Adweek’s community of high-level experts. Today, Kubient's Paul Roberts advocates for more creative thinking when it comes to attracting new talent. Below, in his own words, he suggests it's time to rethink what a strong candidate looks like. The challenge With a record number of job openings, America’s workforce is still feeling the impact of the dramatic shift to working from home full time, with some even seeing an uptick in productivity. Team members are working in the comfort of their own homes, realizing that productivity doesn’t have to be tied down to an office space. For many business leaders, it’s been challenging to find talent to fill a number of positions ranging from product, sales and especially C-suite executives. Hiring has been difficult despite an abundance of qualified individuals. There are notable shifts in career focuses—for the first time, candidates are ghosting businesses offering them positions. People are working toward maintaining a balance they may have found during stay-at-home orders in 2020, especially pertaining to their personal time and what inspires them at work. My peers at other companies are also struggling to attract talent and help maintain growth while building company culture, as many eye a return to the office. The hiring challenges faced by the industry right now could become exponentially more difficult by the emergence of the delta variant. As companies begin looking into new office spaces, as well as a return to in-person conversations, coffees and interviews, we need parallel strategies to include not only return-to-office and in-person networking, but also the potential for continued work-from-home and finding talent when you can only connect screen-to-screen. The process We have brought on a new head of people operations, who has been instrumental in evaluating our current policies and processes when it comes to hiring. Having her on our staff has helped us elevate our current practices, making sure the right team members are involved in decisions—asking the sales, product and data teams where they need the most support and how we can cater our hiring and growth strategy to fit their needs, as soon as possible. Now more than ever, companies need to be more nimble with hiring. At Kubient, we’re looking at nontraditional candidates, ones who might not have the exact experience we’d look for in the past but have transferable skills and can bring an alternative perspective to our core teams. Bringing in more senior leadership to help spearhead our processes, we’ve been working our networks to meet more candidates in the ad-tech world, and even outside of it. With this, we’ve been having great conversations with candidates across these different areas of expertise and will be making offers and onboarding in the coming weeks. The takeaway It is a candidate's market. The pandemic has shifted the expectation and relationship that individuals have with employers—developing and balancing career responsibilities with personal ones has never been more important to candidates. The past year has also shown employees what life is like when you don't need to commute or sit in an office 10 hours a day. Employers must remain flexible to allow employees a hybrid model of work if they continue to deliver results for the company. If your company is struggling to hire, build a stronger foundation to attract talent. While hiring should always be forward-thinking, reassess what needs to be supported with both a macro and micro lens. Business is always dynamic, and by leveraging creative thinking, you are ensuring your team structure meets the needs of the current team and sets up the full company to grow. By taking a closer look at the intricacies of teams and their needs, we can ultimately build a stronger job description and a stronger, more eager candidate who will understand the upside of joining your organization.