Transforming Recruitment Amid COVID-19

Aman Brar, chief executive officer of Jobvite, discussed with Drug Topics how recruiting software is transforming the hiring process during the coronavirus pandemic.

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®: So before we get into Jobvite and COVID-19, specifically, I'd love for you to give us a little bit of your background and how you came to be CEO of Jobvite.

Brar: Yeah, great. So I've spent most of my career in technology, everything from broadband to robotics to previous to Jobvite, I was helping lead a cloud management firm that we had scaled globally after an acquisition and during that time, me and the team had some insights that we thought can be valuable to a more virtual hiring process. After that acquisition, we went and started a startup called Canvas, it was the world's first text-based interviewing platform. Back in 2017, that was still a pretty wild concept to be thinking about engaging in screening and interviewing via text message. We launched that company, it was very successful, ultimately acquired by Jobvite by it as part of a four company roll up. And then soon after, I was asked to be the CEO of the new job I so that's kind of my circuitous path to Jobvite.

Drug Topics®: And then just to start with some basic questions about Jobvite. What is Jobvite? What does it do and how?

Brar: Essentially, as we're a software company, so we sell software as a service to the typical SAS firm out there in the marketplace, and we're essentially a talent acquisition suite. It's software specialized on the recruitment of employees. But one thing about Jobvite is really can handle everything from the recruitment, marketing aspects of hiring all the way through internal mobility and internal referrals, so it's a really nice kind of beneficial circular pathway that companies can hop onto with us to recruiting needs-everything from branded websites to automated text based screening. We've got a pretty robust set of tools that we can offer kind of one analytics and data view to our clients.

Drug Topics®: And then can you highlight some of the differences between traditional hiring processes, versus what Jobvite does remotely?

Brar: From a remote perspective, I think where we really think about remote is part of that is in the use of asynchronous technologies, for example text and bots and things like that, but, the reality is We can have a question asked a different time than the answer is given. So those modalities can be really helpful. One of the nice things about SMS - while the software is very complex and rich for the company, you know what's nice for the candidate is doesn't require any software to be downloaded. When you think about virtual recruiting or hiring, you're not having to ask somebody to download an app or get to a specific website, you can start to develop that relationship with the candidate, or the candidate can ask you a question. For example, do you have paid sick leave right through SMS before they decide whether they want to hop on a video conference with you or a video interview or something like that. The variety of the tools that we use in our personal lives, whether it's SMS and messaging or video that we're all in reality isn't those same tools are effective in an enterprise fashion with regard to remote recruiting and hiring practices.

Drug Topics®: And so now to dive into the effects of COVID-19 on jobs, the United States. So on one hand, a record of 6.6 million people are filing for unemployment in the United States. But on the other hand, pharmacies like CVS are currently looking to hire 5000 new candidates and offering bonuses to employees who have to work on site and be exposed to the virus. So how is Jobvite helping these companies who must now navigate a remote hiring process?

Brar: I think some of it is the deployment of software and technology to help with remote screening, remote engagement, remote job scheduling of interviews and those things how do you reduce the friction from the company and the candidate to interact. What your chat and messaging and whether it's email or video, those are all ways that we can help kind of cultivate that talent pipeline without actually asking the person to have to come to the store, come to the office, to start that engagement process, you can limit the frequency of visits. And then as you get closer to making that final decision, bring the person in for that physical view of the of the office. If you take the example, CVS, so there's certainly plenty of technologies from a scaling perspective that the industry and companies like Jobvite offer to help support those processes. And then the other side of it is - one way we really think about how to help customers is how do you leverage your current employee base for referrals to effectively help bring in more people for employment opportunities. We've got technology that not only helps folks that aren't associated company, but also helps the folks that are currently associated your company help you more formally refer employees and that can be web text, etc. So, lots of solutions being provided, but I think ultimately, it has to come with industry expertise in folks that can help you think creatively. And the last thing I'd say is, it's an opportunity for companies to differentiate right now kind of in a crisis, how do we care for our employees? There's an opportunity to differentiate the type of employer that you are. And then how can you tell that story in a way that might make you more attractive versus one of your peers or competitors in space?

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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