Is Online Hiring in the High-Tech Sector Better?

It was early in March 2021 when Asha Jemerson, director of human resources at Learning Management Pro (LMP) saw the news that mass vaccinations for COVID-19 were being rolled out to the general population. Businesses and offices were preparing to reopen, and LMP was in the planning stages for its workforce to come back into the office. Over the previous year, LMP employees had been working from home; all of the hiring and onboarding completed by Jemerson and her team had been done without the ability to conduct in-person meetings. While this had been challenging, she felt as though they had performed well – so well, that she was not sure that LMP should switch back to its pre-pandemic approach to hiring and onboarding. She was in a difficult position, trying to assess which components of the new virtual hiring processes to keep, and which should discontinue. She was happy to be in this position though; a year previous, Jemerson and her team were in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.

The Pandemic Hits

In February 2020, Jemerson read an email from senior management informing all staff that they would be working from home due to the emergence of COVID-19 infections around the world. Given this new corporate policy, Jemerson’s mind immediately began to consider the implications that working from home would have on their forecasted hiring during that busy time of year. In-person interviews, information sessions, and office tours were no longer possible, but they remained important parts of the hiring process – these processes needed to change quickly. There were advantages to in-person hiring and onboarding, but she knew that there were also some advantages to hiring employees entirely virtually. This pandemic was going to change how LMP conducted hiring, but perhaps some of those changes would be for the better.

Out of an abundance of caution, LMP employees would not be coming back into the office for the foreseeable future. While lock-down rules had not yet been ordered by the Ontario government, LMP executives knew it was coming and saw no need to wait for the order. By sending employees home prior to the government mandated shutdown, they could test out their systems and allow some employees to go back into the office without breaching the forthcoming rules. LMP is a technology-based company, employing staff already comfortable with the use of video conference, filesharing and text-chat technologies, so while shifting workflow to avoid the office would be challenging, it would certainly be achievable.

Jemerson began to think about some of the most pressing organizational changes that she and her team would need to implement. There was little time for planning. The human resources (HR) department would need to take action immediately, which meant there was significant risk of making mistakes. The HR department would need to take action immediately, which meant there was significant risk of making mistakes. As director, Jemerson was part of the team that managed company-wide talent management initiatives, compensation strategies, learning and development, and ensuring alignment between HR operations and corporate strategies. There were many organizational processes already in place to help with these functions, but most of them involved in-person meetings, room bookings, travel, group orientation sessions, etc. Because employees were not allowed to go back into the office except for extraordinary circumstances, and travel was also banned, these processes needed to change.

The stay-at-home policy and the forthcoming government mandated shutdown was complicated by the fact that LMP was growing rapidly. Not only was it bringing on new clients quickly, it was also growing its employee headcount at a commensurate rate. Jemerson and her team needed to continue hiring and onboarding new employees at the same pace as before, if not faster.

LMP Background

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, LMP employed approximately 1000 full-time employees. While it had offices around the world, the bulk of its employees worked out of its offices in Ontario, Canada. The office is a thoughtfully renovated and high-ceilinged space in a trendy part of the tech-focused region. LMP produces software and services for the educational sector, including universities and colleges. LMP required skilled software developers with knowledge of a variety of technologies, including web development, application development, and database management. In addition to their own software, LMP engineers needed to integrate their solutions with their clients’ heterogeneous infrastructures – a challenging task requiring a breadth of technological knowledge. The region in which LMP operated offered a robust pipeline of highly qualified software developers, thanks to a large cluster of other technology-based firms in the region. The region also has a steady stream of new graduates from several higher-educational institutions. LMP makes good use of the local schools for hiring co-op students for intern positions, creating a funnel for full-time hires after graduation.

LMP was well known as a good place to work, receiving external accolades related to its positive work environment. Factors such as this have contributed to a favourable recruitment environment for LMP, helping it quickly fill vacant positions with skilled local workers. In March 2020, however, despite strong hiring tailwinds, Jemerson and the rest of LMP’s HR department had to quickly change their approach to hiring and onboarding; they had many open job postings and LMP had a lot of work to be done.

Pre-Pandemic Hiring at LMP

Prior to the pandemic, LMP utilized a multi-step hiring and onboarding process, including both virtual and in-person activities (see Exhibit 1– Pre-Pandemic Hiring at LMP). The first step after a candidate was short-listed for an interview was an HR interview between candidates and a representative from the HR team. These pre-screening interviews were always done over the phone. During pre-screening interviews, HR team members would validate key information about a candidate’s application and assure alignment of expectations related to the position. These interviews bring to light fundamental issues related to fit between the candidate and LMP – issues such as salary expectations, job location, eligibility to work in Canada, etc. It is also an opportunity for the candidate to self-select out from the hiring process, based on job factors that are important to them. Pre-screening interviews do not typically delve too deeply into the technical elements of the job; these are left for the next step in the interview process.

Usually, Jemerson and her team would conduct a second phone-based interview that assesses job-relevant skills. As a software company, many of the positions require technical skills – many of which can be assessed through a technical screening interview. Technical screening interviews can include problem-based or factual questions related to technologies necessary for the job. Ideally, these interviews would be conducted by LMP employees who have subject matter expertise, but if the questions are closed-ended with specific answers, these interviews may be conducted by non-technical employees.

Candidates who passed the two screening interviews progress to their first in-person interview. As Jemerson said,

Coming into the office is an opportunity to meet with the team. Some teams would do a deeper assessment of skills. If it’s a software job, it may be a coding test. If it’s an instructional design position, it may be a mock course – asking candidates how they would go about designing it. If it’s a business development position, candidates may be asked to make a sales pitch.

These in-person interviews were conducted by the hiring team and/or the hiring managers, fulfilling several functions in the candidate selection process. First, the in-person interviews provided a more fulsome opportunity for subject matter experts to assess candidates’ job-related knowledge, skills, abilities, and other attributes. In contrast to the technical screening interviews, candidates had a broader set of opportunities to show their competencies when speaking with the actual team that the successful candidate would be working with. For most positions within LMP, communication skills were important criteria for hiring, including non-verbal communication such as hand gestures, eye contact, body language, and posture. The assessment of non-verbal communication was easier to do in an in-person setting. Also, bringing candidates into the office provided the opportunity to assess skills in the actual work environment where the job would be situated, providing a higher level of realism and making assessment measures more valid.

A second function that in-person interviews fulfilled was to provide candidates with realistic job previews. This was an important part of the candidate selection process for LMP because it provides candidates with an accurate picture of the job. Ensuring a good candidate–job fit is a two-way road that allows candidates to self-select out of jobs that do not align with their personal preferences. Realistic job previews should be done in situations as close to reality as possible; therefore, in-person interviews provided good opportunities for candidates to see the internal workings of LMP.

The third reason that in-person interviews were important is that inviting candidates into an office allows for a positive candidate experience. “We want to connect with people that are coming in. Candidate experience has been a huge priority for us,” said Jemerson. Whether it is in LMP’s Kitchener, Toronto, Vancouver or Winnipeg offices, the intent was to have candidates leaving the building with a positive experience. The offices’ environments are nice, and candidates were treated well, so the in-person interview became an opportunity to convince the candidate that LMP was a great place to work. The competition for top talent was high in the software development industry, so highlighting a compelling office environment was an important part of the recruitment process.

Onboarding of new employees was done in person. New hires would come to one of LMP’s offices to fill out paperwork, including tax and benefits enrolment forms during their first day of employment. From 9 a.m. until 12 p.m., orientation sessions would bring new hires up to speed on organization-level content, including an introduction to the company and information about the various departments. There was also the opportunity to meet with other new hires being onboarded on the same date. At this point, employees would be issued any necessary hardware including laptops and other computer equipment.

Adapting the Selection Process

It was not clear how long stay-at-home measures would last, but Jemerson’s team had to assume that LMP employees would be working from home for the foreseeable future. It was a busy time of year for her team and they were in the process of filling multiple vacancies across several departments. The thought of moving interviews entirely online was daunting because hiring managers may not be comfortable hiring people they had never met in person. “There is that lack of physicality that may make managers feel less confident in their hiring decisions,” worried Jemerson. Not only that, but LMP’s work environments were an important selling point for candidates. What would it mean to no longer showcase their offices to candidates? And for a team whose mandate is to enhance corporate culture, what would a prolonged period of working from home mean for their carefully crafted work culture?

Online Hiring and Onboarding at LMP During the Pandemic

LMP was already conducting some of its recruitment, selection, and onboarding processes online. The initial application process for jobs at LMP was mostly handled electronically. Candidates could apply for jobs through the corporate website, which was integrated into their human resources information system (HRIS). Candidates could also apply through LinkedIn Recruiter.^[1] The HRIS was a crucial piece in allowing the HR team at LMP to focus on value-added HR functions, rather than “spending all their time tracking down data from multiple places.” HRIS was used to ensure accurate process-flow of candidates’ applications as they progressed through the recruitment and selection funnel. This reduced human error, which improved the overall candidate experience. Also, the increased reliance on LMP’s HRIS and LinkedIn Recruiter had allowed LMP to have more access to recruitment data, allowing the HR team to “be extremely metrics focused” – increasingly utilizing data for improved decision-making.

Recruitment during the pandemic involved the dissemination of job descriptions through targeted recruitment tools such as LinkedIn Recruiter or online job fairs. The HR team hosted online recruitment “ask me anything” (AMA) meet & greet events, where individual departments would address questions from potential candidates. The AMA events acted as an alternative to realistic job previews and helped candidates paint a picture of what it would be like to work in the various LMP departments. They provided candidates with an informal means of connecting with department executives and provided a robust pipeline of excellent candidates. “We got really good feedback on those because it felt to the candidates that they got a look behind closed doors, and to them that felt different,” said Jemerson.

Fortuitously, affordable video conferencing solutions and quality internet connections had become the norm at the beginning of 2020. This allowed LMP and job candidates to have reliable access to quality video conferencing technologies. For internal communication, LMP employees made heavy use of the Slack collaboration software.^[2] However, recruitment and selection activities typically involve communication with candidates external to the organization. To minimize friction in setting up online meetings with stakeholders who are not connected to their internal Slack network, interviews, and recruitment initiatives such as the AMA events were conducted online using the Zoom video conferencing platform.^[3] At the time, barriers to using Zoom software for video conferencing were relatively low – meetings could be set up between unconnected parties through the sharing of a web link. This simple feature coupled with the ubiquity of email communication for sharing the Zoom meeting links allowed for a minimal learning curve for LMP employees and candidates alike.

Another important component of the hiring process involved changes to the onboarding process. LMP was in a unique position to offer orientation training online because their flagship software is a learning management system designed to provide instructional content to students online. The HR team worked with in-house instructional designers to develop an online course known as the “pre-boarding course.” It included the same learning content that was delivered during the in-person orientation – course modules included content about the company, departments, expense reports, policies, and everything else that would be found in the first-day orientation. Jemerson described it in this way:

We would send the pre-boarding course to all new hires before starting. They would enter some of their employment information, previously this was done when they started, using paper forms. Now everything is electronic and much more efficient … The course component is used to learn about the LMP culture – get pre day-one information that gives them a feel for the organization.

The pre-boarding course was self-guided, meaning that it could be completed by new hires at their leisure, avoiding the administrative overhead of scheduling onboarding meetings. This approach was very scalable, meaning that they could produce the course only once, but deliver it to any number of new hires. This also reduced the amount of organization-level orientation during their first week on the job, allowing more time for teams to provide department-level training.

Some Advantages of Online Hiring and Onboarding

LMP had mostly learned to work effectively virtually. Despite all of its offices being closed, LMP hired more people in 2020 than in any other year in their history. This growth was due to the worldwide increase in demand for online instruction, so learning management platforms were very sought after. In some ways, it was fortuitous to have all of these new employees working from home – Jemerson noted: “We wouldn’t have had space for all of the new hires if we had to find physical space for them.” This allowed for the deferral, or even elimination of office expansion initiatives, avoiding increased office expenses.

The HR team at LMP surveys all candidates about their experience throughout the recruitment and selection process, including those who are not eventually hired. By tracking candidate satisfaction prior to the pandemic and again at the end of 2020, they were able to show that candidates were equally satisfied with the online-only interview process. “Based on our internal surveys, the candidate experience has stayed flat. Also, last year [2019], before the pandemic we won an external award for excellence in candidate experience; we won that same award this year [2020].”

LMP’s ability to quickly fill roles improved; this was related to an increased acceptance throughout the organization of hiring full-time virtual employees, those who are not necessarily tied to any particular LMP physical office. Jemerson pointed out that this “expands LMP’s hiring reach. It shouldn’t matter where people live as long as we are legally able to operate in that particular location. We’re happy to hire the best people for the job.” Feedback from hiring managers after three to six months of onboarding new hires using online recruitment, selection, and onboarding had been better than expected. Jemerson noted that hiring managers were saying, “Wow, the quality of our hires has been excellent,” and that observational data on new hire turnover appeared to be quite low.

The switch to online hiring was associated with improved adherence to interview best practices among hiring managers. A typical struggle of HR departments is to ensure that hiring managers follow reliable and valid interview protocols, including: asking the same questions of all candidates, using the same assessment tools in the same way for all candidates, and taking detailed notes that justify candidate assessments. To ensure reliable and valid job interview assessments, LMP uses “scorecards” for the standardized assessment of interview candidates. When interviews were done in person, scorecards were frequently not filled out by the hiring manager until after the interview. This could lead to inaccurate memory of events and make judgement more susceptible to cognitive bias and unintentional discrimination. Jemerson observed that when hiring managers are talking to the candidate in a video conference, “the scorecard can be right in front of them and they can capture their assessments more easily. It has definitely been a big win.” The social barriers to typing throughout an interview seemed to be lower in an online setting, increasing the quantity and quality of interview notes.

While very real challenges still existed for LMP employees working from home, such as expectations to work with young children in the home, and coping with feelings of isolation, some aspects of the LMP working environment had demonstrably improved. Jemerson noted:

We survey our employees regularly on how they are feeling. We have noticed people self-reporting that they are more engaged. The ability to have more flexibility in their life – the reduction of commute time alone. A lot of people have commented on feeling more productive once they were over the adjustment period. A large portion of our people would be okay to do a hybrid approach – not a 100%, full-time return to the office.

End of the Pandemic Leads to Tough Decisions

By the middle of 2022, most of the population was emerging from the pandemic and feeling comfortable with heading back into the office. So LMP’s office spaces could begin to safely open back up. With the prospect of LMP employees going back to the office to conduct their work, either full-time or part-time, the HR team needed to make some decisions once again. What should they do once their offices open back up? Should they change their hiring and onboarding processes once again? Jemerson and her team had a short amount of time to weigh these important decisions.

Exhibits

Exhibit 1: Pre-Pandemic Hiring at LMP

Image Descriptions

Exhibit 1 – Pre-Pandemic Hiring at LMP

A flow chart outlining a sequence of steps in LMP’s hiring process: pre-screening HR interview (Phone), job-relevant skills interview (phone), in-person interview (in LMP offices), then in-person HR onboarding (in LMP offices). [Back]

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How to cite this case: McDermott, K. (2023). Is online hiring in the high-tech sector better? Open Access Teaching Case Journal, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.58067/z62a-qc09

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