A Recruiter Reflecting on 2020

Jonathan Kidder

4 years ago

As the year draws to a close, I’ve taken the time to reflect on my experiences. The recruiting industry faced numerous challenges this year, including remote working, hiring freezes, and navigating a global pandemic. Both personally and professionally, I encountered obstacles that I never could have foreseen. Additionally, the election season and its accompanying uncertainties added further stress to an already challenging year.

A lot of people have faced furloughs and layoffs during the year. It’s really impacted people’s mental health. My wife being in the counseling field has dealt with many challenges. She’s heard from many clients on this years impacts. Many industries have been completely halted and people that have been reliably employed for years now face unemployment. I saw many Recruiters and Sourcers being furloughed locally in Minneapolis. Thankfully, things have made a turn for the better at the end of this year. Companies have embraced WFH situations and have found that employees have continued to work productively during these times.

From my perspective this time has caused many employed candidates to reconsider taking a new role and instead just hold on to their current employment. It’s been tough to attract passive candidates during this time. Many candidates have removed themselves from the process. On top of that, candidates who are active have moved quicker to find something which has been difficult to bring them through our process (which takes 3-4 weeks to set up in most cases).

Overcame Work from Home Obstacles

I’ve struggled with the change from working in an office setting to working fully remote. I’m naturally a more extroverted person. I do better around others in an office setting and thrive on that energy. When I’m sitting across the room from Recruiters on the phone in the morning it really gets me energized and motivated to start the day.

I started my career working fully remote and continued to work remotely for 4 and half years so none of this is new to me. But, there’s something different about working remotely during a global pandemic. My State (Minnesota) had a stay at home order in March during which it felt like we didn’t have a choice in the matter. I had to adjust my expectations and work hard on accepting this. My company has announced that they won’t go into an office setting until June 2021 which is not what this extroverted guy wanted to hear.

I wrote about my experience working remotely and advice on how to adjust to it here:

Advice for Recruiters Working Remotely

Successfully Launched the Recruiter Wand (Extension)

I’ve dreamed of creating and developing my own chrome extension tool for recruiters for many years. During the lockdown I had found some inspiration to tackle that dream and create something I felt there was a need for. Why isn’t there an extension that auto populates a LinkedIn profile and auto generates recruiter templates? There were several other tools like Text Expander but none were tailored to recruiters specifically. I drafted and wrote 25 recruiter template messages that could be auto generated to fit within any message and worked with a developer to create Recruiter Wand.

I then got approval from Google to publish the tool in the chrome store. Right away the responses back were very positive. The amount of messages and saying how much this tool has helped them in their sourcing duties has been phenomenal. It’s really motivated me to continue dreaming of and creating new tools and extensions. We currently have around 680+ active users within the chrome store. You can learn more about my extension (here).

Spoke at Several Recruiting Conferences and Events

I’ve always struggled with presenting in front of large groups. I’m someone who loves being behind the scenes and I’ve dealt with this fear throughout my career. I get nervous and doubt my abilities. I’ve always felt that I had imposter syndrome.

I got the courage from others to embrace the fear. I presented at SourceCon Digital at both Spring and Fall events. I also presented with Sosu at both their events this year. It’s been such an honor to present with the best and brightest in the field. The feedback has been positive and my overall experience has been fantastic. It’s been a thrill of a lifetime to present at so many global conferences. You can see my full list of presentations (here).

My Favorite conference was Sosu in the Fall. I had a large attendance who gave me a lot of feedback and questions throughout my presentation. We had a lot of fun walking through examples and it was quite an enjoyable experience. It was great connecting with so many leaders at this event: Vanessa Raath, Glenn Gutmacher, Katrina Collier, Guillaume Alexandre, Marcel van der Meer, Shally Steckerl and to name a few!

Finished writing my Book

Writing my second book has been an uphill battle. I wanted to write about the latest talent sourcing tools and as you can imagine I kept editing and adding tools to this list. I want the book to highlight all the major areas in sourcing so it’s taken awhile to condense my list down. It’s overwhelming if you are new to our industry and I wanted to create a guide that was easy to understand and digest.

It’s taken about a year and a half to complete and I am almost at the finish line. I’ve sent my final drafts to my editor and I’m looking forward to publishing it soon. You can learn more about it (here).

What will Change in 2021?

With so many changes that happened in 2020 we will soon turn our focus to 2021. I hope the in the near future, the world will be fully recovered from Covid and will be able to move on. I think more companies will embrace the work from home setting and won’t renew office building leases. In addition, many employees who have grown accustomed to working from home will demand the ability to continue working remotely (except for me)!

I’ve predicted other changes for the upcoming year and how Covid will impact things below:

How to Navigate through Covid and Recruit Tech Talent

What will Change in Recruiting after Covid 19?

Recruiters Brace for a Hiring Slowdown

Recruiters will be Facing a Hiring Downturn Due to the Coronavirus

How will the Coronavirus Impact Recruiting in 2020

Looking back on this year I feel Recruiters and Sourcers should feel proud of what they accomplished and handled during these difficult times. It’s been a tough time for many and I hope 2021 will bring much more joy and peace for all.

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