How digitalisation is affecting recruitment and why it’s more important than ever

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Technology has revolutionised our lives in countless ways. Amy Kwok, regional talent acquisition director at Hilti North Asia, shares how the company leverages virtual reality (VR) technology to make a huge difference in its recruitment process.

Why Hilti North Asia invest on digitalisation in our recruitment process?
Hilti adopts a unique direct sales approach and our account managers (sales team) visit our customers in person to understand their needs thoroughly and propose the right solutions to them. With our ambition to accelerate business grow in North Asia, it’s crucial to attract competent sales candidates from non-construction industries to ramp up our sales team.

In 2019, we made a big step forward by introducing virtual reality (VR) to showcase a day in the life of a Hilti account manager, instead of inviting candidates to spend a day job shadowing. This enables candidates to visualise themselves as an account manager in different scenarios to experience and understand our expectation of account managers in a fun, innovative and cost-effective way.

How do candidates feel about the VR experience?
We developed different scenarios under our VR series and in less than 10 minutes they will experience our direct sales model, preparation for a site visit, systematic account development, Hilti’s value proposition and more. Candidates were thrilled to take part in our VR experience at a career fair and one potential candidate said “It’s great to use VR to fully understand Hilti’s expectation of its account managers and to visit areas that I’ve never been.”

The adoption of technology is particularly appealing to Millennials to understand the career start point of account manager as a foundation for them to become future business leaders. This also helps shorten the recruitment processes and further enhance the candidate experience.

Where will digitalisation lead us from here to the foreseeable future?
With the outbreak of COVID-19, it’s put companies to the test on adapting technologies quickly to keep the business running. We are fortunate to have introduced VR in our recruitment last year so candidates can take part in the shadowing while we practice social distancing. In summary, the adoption of digitalisation at the right time is a key enabler in achieving greater success in the future.