According to the survey, the pandemic has triggered an influx in applicants and talent quality, with 48% declaring they have received more applications since COVID-19, and 66% reporting an improvement in candidate quality. However, access to top talent was cited as the top challenge for 2021 (19%), showing that companies are struggling to fully manage and take advantage of this talent influx.

In addition, although there is an increase in the quality and quantity of applications, only 7% of businesses are managing to provide feedback to all candidates.

“This is an incredibly busy time for hiring managers, but we now have an opportunity to help the unemployment crisis,” said Robert Newry, CEO and Co-founder of Arctic Shores. “Companies are being faced with swathes of talent, and candidates going out of their way to be creative and clever about the application process, but organisations don’t have the processes to sift through and respond.”

New roles and turning remote

Regarding hiring processes in 2021, 40% respondents said 11-30% of hires will be new roles and half of those surveyed will be hiring more remote workers in 2021. Remote working constraints are not considered a top challenge (4%) for the year ahead.

However, when it comes to hiring, remote interviews have only provided better hiring outcomes for 33% of companies, with 18% finding hiring outcomes worse than before and 45% seeing the same result.

Robert concluded: “Talent Acquisition teams in growth companies are under huge pressure to fill roles quickly - the average time to hire in such companies is 30 days, which doesn't give time to manage this increased level of candidate applications. The focus has been almost entirely on the efficiency of processing the volume to the detriment of candidate experience and opportunity for all. The requirement for 2021 will be to digitise the recruitment process so it’s also more inclusive and respectful of candidates.”