Part 2: Transforming Recruitment Amid COVID-19

Drug Topics®: Hi, my name is Gabrielle Ientile with Drug Topics® and today we're talking to Aman Brar, who is CEO of Jobvite, about the role of remote hiring in the health care industry amidst the pandemic. Aman, thank you so much for joining us today.

Brar: Pleasure to be with you, Gabrielle. Thanks.

Drug Topics®: What are some companies that Jobvite currently has as customers in the health care industry?

Brar: We have some of the largest health care employers, across the spectrum companies like HCA and Ascension all the way to Anthem. We are pretty strong in hospitals and healthcare. You can imagine, there has been lots of interest in hiring in the healthcare workforce. I think the one thing that gets overlooked is it's something little bit right now is not there's not so much in every case about needing to hire dramatically high numbers of new employees for some of these health care institutions. Some of it's about how do you help them think about allocating their current people to a different problem, right? So imagine you're a company in the health care space, or in finance or in any industry where your physical presence has gone down, but now your virtual presence, or your call center volume might be temporarily incredibly high these next few months. So how do you shift some of that, for example, more retail oriented workforce, and into a more virtual kind of call center like environment. So, and a lot of cases we're helping think through your current talent pool and how to reallocate internally as well as how do you differentiate and hire more external helper.

Drug Topics®: So what you've seen is the demand for healthcare jobs being met currently or our pharmacies and health care industry in general, having a hard time filling available positions?

Brar: Yeah, I think health care, as we know, has been tight, very tight labor market, even prior to the impact of COVID-19. And retail has also been a pretty tight labor market, even prior to the impact of COVID-19. I think when you take the intersection of those two things, you're still left with a pretty tight labor market. The reality is there are people that are unfortunately losing their employment opportunities right now. And some of that will be are people going to make a temporary change in the type of work that they do? So an example, you might have been in retail, and are you going to transition into delivery and driving those types of things. It's some of those, kind of the liquidity in the in the labor market is still working itself out right now. But I do think that there's going to continue to be shortages. Even if temporarily things like elective procedures and other things are down. And the reality is those procedures will come back right in the interim we're trying to allocate resources to the biggest problem, facing us right now with COVID.

Drug Topics®: So while the health care industry is in desperate need of a high volume of healthcare workers, how can jobs like also help those hiring find, also the right person for the job? When there's also an immediate need?

Brar: It's interesting. You think about health care, let's just take a hospital -  many of them kind of operate like many cities, right? You have everything from janitorial to food services, to nutrition to health care delivery to sanitation. So you're right. Even the term healthcare such a broad term of the of the folks really value people that participate in that ecosystem. I think how we're helping is through you know, virtualizing talent acquisition process, which we've done through software leveraging the latest and greatest in technology with things like SMS and automated screening processes and video, etc. And then ultimately, how can we help leverage your current talent pool your current employees to find more external available employment? So getting to the right job has to do with are you developing effective interview structures? Are you really thinking about the right skills and tools. You have things like libraries that mapped particular roles and so how are we using sentiment analysis and otherwise to match the right opportunity to the right person? I think your point is very pertinent in healthcare, there are a lot of kind of jobs and opportunities in that space and finding the right person with that right opportunity. One of the things I have been really excited to see is our clients and others are doing a lot to invest in skilling up their labor force. Examples of health care groups: you might come in at a certain level of a job and then after a certain time, they're investing in training to help you move up into higher income roles within those healthcare firms. So an example of that would be IU health in at University health is doing some really novel programs in that regard that we're really excited about.

Drug Topics®: Beyond the current pandemic, those seeking jobs are often told to stand out from their competition? So how can jobseekers effectively stand out to recruiters or recruiting sites within a more remote hiring process?

Brar: I think one of the things I always encourage folks is not to kind of over game the system. So even though lots of technology is being utilized, I really think it's about let's take a digital interview kind of concept. One of the things I always recommend is: hey, you certainly want to be sustained and you want to answer the question as directly as possible, but at the end of the day, you know, expressing personality can still be effective and matter. I think it's about not forgetting that you're human, and that also you're going to work with humans. And so not losing what you want to express about who you are through that digital remote interviewing process. So I'd say keep who you are kind of front and center through the process.

Drug Topics®: And how do you see job by changing and improving the hiring process after the pandemic ends?

Brar: I think I think there will be new and differentiated stories about how companies are cared for their employees, for example, about how companies adapted scalable processes with regard to recruitment. I think they'll be an opportunity to really share a lot of best practices, and I think we'll learn a lot about what does it mean to care for employees in this day and age and I think those companies that are doing it right now, we'll have great stories to tell them and we'll be able to help them create some separation from their competitors by harnessing those stories and really empowering their employment brand, empower, empowering their recruitment capabilities with those stories that they're creating right now.

Drug Topics®: Aman, thank you so much for joining us today.

Brar: Thanks so much, Gabrielle. I appreciate it. Have a great day.

Editor’s note: This interview transcription has been lightly edited for style and clarity.

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