How will the Coronavirus Impact Recruiting in 2020

Posted by Jonathan Kidder on March 5, 2020January 29, 2023

Large corporations such as Facebook, Nestle, Amazon, and Cargill are putting a halt on both domestic and international travel as a precautionary step to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Understandably, such impactful decisions will affect lives personally and professionally, but due to the fact tens of thousands of people across 40 countries have become infected with the virus in less than 60 days, the safety measure is more than justified.

In regards to recruiting, the onsite interviewing process must be altered during this time as well. From procuring applicants to achieving your hiring goals for 2020, below we will discuss how you can prepare and move forward.

How HR and Talent Acquisition Teams Prepare?

HR leaders should review and update emergency response protocols and communicate with employees accordingly. False information about the virus is running rampant, so keep everyone well-informed. Additionally, it’s important that everyone understands the threat of the virus, its rapid progression, and tips for prevention.

Counsel colleagues and team members to avoid handshakes and advise frequent hand washing. The virus is spread primarily through coughing and sneezing, and as such, door knobs, cell phones, computer keyboards, etc. can be very easily contaminated.

Companies Imposing Employee Travel Restrictions:

Twitter – all non-essential travel (including candidate travel)
Nike – partial restrictions
Google – all int’l travel
Amazon – all non-essential travel (including all onsite candidate interviews, now going to video)
GitHub –
Salesforce – all non-essential travel
Square – Pausing all business travel and discouraging personal travel
inFeedo – Pausing all non-essential travel
Intel – All Travel and Conferences attendance or meetings with people you can’t track where they came from.
Stripe – Paused global business travel.
Bottomline Technologies – all non-essential travel (including all onsite candidate interviews, now going to video)
VSCO – Paused international travel and non-essential domestic travel
Nestle – restricting international business travel until mid-March
L’Oreal – suspending business travel through March
Unilever – restricting to “business-critical” travel
Community Solutions (nonprofit) – all non-essential travel through the end of March
Ford – restricting all global travel until March 27th
Cargill – Suspended all non-essential business travel
World Bank/IMF – moving spring meetings to virtual
JP Morgan – Restricting non-essential global travel
Atlassian – restricting to only high business impact travel
Textio – encouraging remote work and suspending travel
23andMe – banned travel to affected areas as listed by CDC, instructed employees to only attend critical conferences
Automattic – Pausing all business travel and discouraging personal travel
Tenable – onboarding of new members is now online only
IBM – suspending travel for internal meetings, external event with 1,000+ attendees, non-critical international travel

Companies Imposing Remote Work:

Twitter – Encouraging all employees who are able to work from home, video interviews
Facebook – moving to all video interviews to restrict visits to physical offices
Square – suspended visitors + certain teams being encouraged to WFH in Seattle and SF, and Dublin, Ireland and London
Stripe – encouraging/requiring work from home, suspending visitors, video interviews
Amazon – all onsite candidate interviews, now going to video
VSCO – offering optional WFH, no social visitors, video interviews
JP Morgan – Managers requested that about 10% of staff across its consumer bank work remotely as part of the plan’s resiliency testing.
Microsoft – Allowing SF/Seattle employees to work from home through March 9th.
Textio – encouraging remote work and suspending travel
23andMe – conducting work from home drills to ensure connectivity and business continuity; empowering employees to work from home based on their own situation (response to school closures, sick household member, etc)

Companies Imposing Virtual Based Interviews / WFH:

StayingHomeClub – a running list of tech companies WFH/travel/conference plans
Twitter – Encouraging all employees who are able to work from home, video interviews
Facebook – moving to all video interviews to restrict visits to physical offices, asked all bay area employees to wfh through March
Square – suspended visitors + certain teams being encouraged to WFH in Seattle and SF and Dublin, Ireland and London
Stripe – encouraging/requiring work from home, suspending visitors, video interviews
ADP – Enabling work from home capabilities within impacted regions; no mandatory WFH announcements at this time.
Amazon – all onsite candidate interviews, now going to video
VSCO – offering optional WFH, no social visitors, video interviews
JP Morgan – Managers requested that about 10% of staff across z m m consumer bank work remotely as part of the plan’s resiliency testing.
Microsoft – Allowing SF/Seattle employees to work from home through March 9th.
Official Microsoft guidance
LinkedIn tells Bay Area employees to work from home through March, if possible, and is also asking employees to postpone all non-essential business travel and will not participate in external events in March and April
Textio – encouraging remote work and suspending travel
23andMe – encouraging work from home; empowering employees to work from home based on their own situation (response to school closures, sick household member, etc)
Ellucian – suspending all in person interviews; utilizing video based interviews across all global positions. Remote work is encouraged/supported
Grammarly – SF, New York, and Vancouver employees mandated to work from home; Kyiv employees encouraged to work from home; conducting all candidate interviews by video
Indeed – all employees requested to work from home (same parent company as Glassdoor)
Glassdoor – all employees asked to work from home until further notice (same parent company as Indeed)
Salesforce – encouraging Seattle Salesforce/Tableau employees to WFH through March. strongly encouraging all employees across California and New York to work remotely for the month of March
Google – Asking all north american employees to wfh until 4/10
Nordstrom – Encouraging employees to work from home if they can
Boeing – encouraging Seattle-area employees to work from home
Confluent – supporting WFH and empowering candidates to interview remotely.
LinkedIn – Bay area employees asked to work from home through March.
Expedia – Encouraging Seattle employees to work from home
WalkMe – Candidate interview travel suspended, moved to video interviews
Bullhorn – “suspended” handshakes, a switch to Zoom meetings where ever possible and implemented an external visitor process that sees our policy communicated to visitors 24 hours before a meeting, encouraging cancellation or online meetings where symptoms may be experienced. No office closures yet though.
Adobe – Asking Seattle and Bay area employees to work from home through March 23rd
Box – Work from home for all locations
Catalyst – Work from home (NY) on a week-by-week basis
Eli Lilly and Co – encouraging all U.S. employees to work from home if possible
Okta – directed Bellevue, SF, San Jose, London, Paris, Amsterdam employees to wfh.
Airbnb – SF employees encouraged to work from home and no approval needed. Seattle office closed.
Lyft – SF and Seattle employees encouraged to work from home
eCarta – work from home, Seattle and SF office shut down
WSurveyMonkey – allowing employees flexibility to work from home through March 20
Coinbase – optional WFH starting 3/9, also providing $250 stipend per employee for video conferencing equipment
Pure Storage – work from home, Seattle / Bellevue, Mountain View
TMobile – work from home, Seattle / Bellevue
Genie – work from home, Redmond
REI – Seattle, work from home
Houzz – WFH in Bay Area, but offices will still be open for those who want to work in office. Will be monitored on a week to week basis
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – asked DC employees to telework
Stride – WFH strongly encouraged in SF (only office location), but office will still be open for those who want to work in office. Will be monitored on a daily/weekly basis
LA Times – Restricting employee travel and encouraging work from home
ButcherBox – mandatory WFH starting Monday 3/16
Handshake – encouraging all employees to work from home 3/9 to 3/20 (reviewed weekly to determine if we extend)
Drift – WFH required across all offices (Boston, SF, Tampa and Seattle). Reassessing every Friday.
Washington Post – asking employees to wfH
Dolby – option to work remote
Reflektive – All domestic and international travel on hold, no visitors in offices, supporting work from home, all interviews done remotely. Reassessing every weekend.
Spotify – All employees required to remote work through March
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago – non-critical employees asked to work remotely for 2 weeks (start March 12) then reevaluate.
Mozilla – Strongly recommending work from home for all employees until 3/27, will be reviewed and extended if needed. PNon-essential travel for two weeks canceled.
Mattermost – Majority of staff is remote, recommend WFH for SF.
Nextdoor – all global employees sterviews strongly encouraged to WFH, all interview remote
DNAnexus – All employees strongly encouraged all to WFH from both SF and Mt View offices
HelloBetter.de – Instituted work from home for all global employees
PolicyGenius – Optional WFH
Confluent – requiring WFH globally; all interviews transitioning to remote.
Hometree.co.uk – running wfh mandatory policy until further government advice for all employees.
Sisense – Highly Encouraged Work From Home for all locations.
Thrive Digital – Team members recommended to work from home until March 31st, however our office remains open (for now). In-person interviews have been rescheduled to video calls. Non-team member office visitors are restricted.
WalkMe – All employees have been notified that they can work from home if they feel more secure. Currently, the offices are open. A full day of remote work is implied in the Tel Aviv office to test the systems on Sunday (work day).
Internxt – All employees are encouraged to work from home
GoCardless – all offices closed until further notice

The above information came from a crowd-sourced document from Lars at Amplify Talent (here).

How to Update Applicants?

When notifying applicants to setup interviews, inform them of the provisions being made in the interest of keeping everyone safe during this time. For instance, plan to replace in-person interviews with telephone or video interviews instead. This prevents unnecessary contact and travel for everyone involved. In addition to interviews, consider canceling unnecessary in-person sales meetings and non-essential gatherings.

How Will Your Team Prepare for this Impact?

Companies of all sizes are reevaluating their policies to permit employees to work from home, when the dynamics of the work environment allow this option. Likewise, when employees are outfitted with necessary work-at-home tools and guidelines, employees will be more apt to remain at home when sick. During this time, it may be wise to also reexamine sick leave, and either increase the number of days or waive limitations altogether. Otherwise, staff will likely show up for work. Maintaining steady lines of communication among team members will alleviated uncertainty and provide direction as things continue to unfold with the coronavirus.

How This Will Impact Hiring Goals in 2020

While the full effect of the virus on hiring and the economy at large is yet to be seen, preparation is key to ensuring your work routine is minimally impacted. Fortunately, the internet has put the world at our fingertips, making remote-work and streamlined communications possible in a variety of ways. Further, this has the potential of being a crucial public safety tactic that could make a huge difference for many.

Current Challenges I’m Facing as a Sourcer

I’m predicting that our Summer recruiting efforts we’ll slow down. I’m noticing that my screens and applicant rates are slowing down. The virus fears will make candidates stay where there at for the time being.

I may lose my competitive advantage when prospecting for candidates.. A huge selling point is having them come onsite and meeting with the hiring manager. Maybe send them — a tee shirt or something to sell the culture?

Developer interviews have to do white boarding examples. This has become a pain for us at Amazon.. So, just working through those challenges.

If you are moving to virtual interviews. Having the candidate test there speaker/wifi connection the day before.. We’ve had a lot of issues with this.

Prepping your interviewers too — over Skype is way different them interviewing someone onsite. You may have dogs/babies etc – they need to be more flexible with these challenges.

On the positive side it will make more companies reconsider there work from home policies!

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Jonathan Kidder

With more than 12 years of recruitment experience, Jonathan has helped startups and small businesses find the talent they need. He runs the blog WizardSourcer, which explores the latest trends in talent sourcing, provides reviews of recruitment tools, and features interviews with prominent figures in the industry.