How to Hire the Best Talents in Malaysia by Humanising the Recruitment Process

According to a Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) report, 49 percent of HR professionals and recruiters surveyed cited “competition from other employers” as one of the top reasons for difficulty in recruiting new talents. This seemingly points towards a global talent shortage — one that will reportedly result in a global shortfall of up to USD8.5 trillion by 2030. 

This also means that competition is fiercer than ever when it comes to attracting new talent for your businesses. Recruiting the best candidates is no longer a given, and it’s crucial for companies to analyse all aspects of their recruitment processes in order to stay competitive — and ultimately, hire good quality candidates for your team. 

A big part of any good recruitment strategy is to maintain the human element throughout the entire process — to humanise recruitment. To find out more about this, we recently spoke to Camelia Loh, the Founder and CEO of Kabel, a job platform that connects job seekers directly with hiring managers, as well as Michelle Lau, Employer Branding Manager at Digi Telecommunications.

Here are some key takeaways from the the latest episode of altHR’s webinar series (in partnership with MDEC’s 100 Go Digital and as part of Digi’s #BCDigitalisation​ initiative):

The human element in recruitment directly affects candidate quality

Camelia explains that candidates often ask about their prospective line managers, or leaders within the organisation. This is crucial information for job seekers, as these leaders play a huge role in their career development — and even their financial security, to an extent. The phrase, “I leave bosses, not companies”, rings particularly true in this aspect. 

As such, it’s important to properly communicate the mission, vision, and values of prospective leaders to candidates. If you connect like-minded people together, they simply work better due to the intrinsic motivation of working with similarly goal-oriented folks. ‍

“If you miss out on the human element in the recruitment process, it’s hard to get good candidates.” - Camelia Loh, Founder and CEO of Kabel

Ultimately, the human element is a crucial part of any recruitment process — from the candidate discovering the job vacancy all the way to the onboarding stage — and this should be reflected in communication between candidates and employers. ‍

Humanise your Job Descriptions (JDs) & Interviews

The first line of communication with candidates usually comes in the form of a job description (JD), although there should not be an overload of information here. Both Michelle and Camelia suggest using different styles of writing to appeal to different candidates — and it can be helpful to put a bit of emotion into your writing. 

“Show a bit of emotion. After all, it’s a human being writing the JD,” explains Michelle. This also applies to interviews, even as the recruitment process goes virtual in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. You’ll need to show a genuine interest in the candidate, and you can back this interest up by actually going through CVs beforehand — not during the interview. 

And when speaking to prospective hires, remember that their defences are often up, so try to avoid being robotic by following a script, word-for-word. 

Instead, think about the questions beyond the script — what do you want to know about the candidate beyond hard skills? After all, there isn’t an absolute “top talent”; rather, talents that best fit your organisation and its needs. 

“As a candidate, I can feel it if your mind is elsewhere but your eyes are looking at me.” - Michelle

Ultimately, when you’re assessing any candidate, show an interest, be present, and remember to have empathy — this makes it easier to see the “true” personality of a candidate.‍

Humanise the onboarding experience, as well

So you’ve finally settled on the candidate. The hiring manager, HR team, and department heads are all aligned on this one person, and the feeling is mutual with the hire. Now, it’s time to onboard your new team member — but this is 2021, so the onboarding process is a virtual one. 

Since onboarding sessions can be intimidating for new joiners to a company, it’s important to set the right mood. You’ll want your new employees to be relaxed and open, while still having a learning mindset. 

One way to accomplish this is to humanise the onboarding process. For example, Michelle explains that there are always elements where “we want to hear what you say” when onboarding new hires at Digi, usually in the form of Q&A sessions, open chat boxes, and so on. 

Hosts at onboarding sessions are also encouraged to loosen up, because ultimately, this sets the mood for the new employees, too. ‍

Personalisation requires a good balance of humanisation & technology

At the end of the day, personalisation of the entire recruitment process involves a balance between the human element and technology. The latter bit is where technologies like altHR and Kabel come in — to help you save time, allowing you to be “more human”, as Camelia says. 

Digi’s super app, altHR, comes with an Onboarding module that allows you to engage your new employees from the very first day by creating a successful onboarding journey. This allows new hires to be taken through the usual onboarding processes — but virtually. 

The altHR onboarding journey includes sequential steps and access to articles and videos on the company, company culture, leadership, and other relevant information. This allows new hires to track their progress, and to be effectively onboarded at the end of the process. 

Meanwhile, admins are also able to generate reports of new hires, with information on these employees available before Day One. This can help with matters like security, or even to prepare equipment such as company-issued laptops.

Ultimately, it’s all about digitalisation. The world is going increasingly digital these days, and this trend is set to continue in the years to come. HR professionals are often faced with daunting, often tedious tasks on a daily basis — tasks that have become even more difficult to handle in light of the ongoing COVID-19 situation. 

But help is available, if you know where to look. Let us streamline your HR processes by managing and automating day-to-day tasks, so you won’t have to worry about things like paperwork, privacy concerns, time-tracking, or onboarding challenges.

Sign up for altHR, the all-in-one digital solution that covers everything from payroll and onboarding, to staff management and providing employees with information kits. You’ve done it the old way long enough.