Common Sense

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, job portals saw unusually high activity after midnight. Travel nurses and healthcare workers were logging in after long, grueling shifts to look for their next assignment.

They were open for work, even actively looking, but simply did not have time during the day to pick up calls from recruiters.

With growing unemployment rates and millions of people on the hunt for a job, technology has never been more important in helping your recruiters rise to the occasion. Today’s most sophisticated staffing firms are going beyond triggered emails and SMS integration to provide a seamless, polished experience throughout the talent lifecycle. If you want to foster better candidate relationships and max out your return on investment, your next superpower might be a conversational AI assistant — also known as a chatbot. 

You’ve probably interacted with a chatbot at some point or another. And maybe you’ve interacted with a conversational assistant. The terms “chatbot” and “conversational assistant” are often used interchangeably (honestly, even here on the Sense blog), but in all truth they’re actually quite different.

It’s such a weird time, isn’t it? We’re either out in public wearing masks, or we’re at home having conversations with colleagues and family through a screen. We inherently crave human interaction and because we’re living in a pandemic, we’re finding new ways to try and meet our basest human needs. 

The pandemic has presented all sorts of challenges and uniquities that none of us could have foreseen at the beginning of the year. Staffing firms who serve essential industries like home care, healthcare, grocery, retail and construction (to name a few) are seeing massive surges in demand for talent. Other industries may have fewer reqs, but a surge in demand for jobs that is overwhelming their already-stressed recruiters. 

There’s a lot about recruiting in a post-COVID 2020 that is different than it was a year ago. In fact, has recruiting ever changed so much, so quickly before? 

Although maximizing resources has always been a priority for staffing firms, it has seemingly never been more important. With teams still spread between the office and remote locations (and in many cases, still fully remote), your ability to help drive productivity and reduce stress for your recruiters is paramount.