Recruiting and Onboarding Employees When You Can’t Meet Face to Face, with Allison O’Kelly, Corps Team
John Ray: [00:00:00] And hello, everyone. I’m John Ray with Business RadioX. And I’m here with Allison O’Kelly. And Allison is the CEO and Founder of Corps Team. Allison, my question for you is, how do you recruit and onboard when you can’t meet face-to-face?
Allison O’Kelly: [00:00:20] Yeah, that’s certainly one of the challenges we’re dealing with right now in these days of COVID and, probably, it’s going to be something we’re going to deal with going forward as we’re maybe going to become more of a remote workforce. And so, it’s really important to remember, you still can meet face to face, right? We have all these wonderful technologies right now, such as Zoom, and Teams, and everything else. So, you can, still, from the recruiting standpoint, make sure you’re doing video interviews and make sure that you’re still giving that candidate the same amount of time you would if they were in office. So, if you’re used to a full 45-minute interview, make sure you do that on a video interview, so you get to know the candidate just as well.
Allison O’Kelly: [00:01:09] For the onboarding piece, that’s what’s a little more challenging. But again, if you use your technology and you use scheduling correctly, make sure you’re trying to do exactly what you would have done in the office. So, you have a set schedule to onboard people, where they’re meeting on video with whether it’d be HR, or team members, or seniors. All of those kind of people, make sure you’re still having that activity.
Allison O’Kelly: [00:01:41] And also, make sure you have some that’s just a little bit of fun. You have team building exercises. You have get-to-know you sessions. For example, we hired someone recently, and on a Zoom call, we all got together and talked about our pets. Just something little where you can get to know one another, those are things that will really help get that person engaged and part of your community.
Allison O’Kelly, Founder and CEO, Corps Team
Allison O’Kelly is the Founder and CEO of Corps Team and a talent acquisition expert who partners with CEOs, executives and hiring managers to recruit exceptional talent into their organizations. Allison has grown her business from an idea to a search and staffing firm that has placed thousands of professionals in companies nationwide.
Prior to Corps Team / Mom Corps, Allison was a CPA with KPMG in Atlanta, and was in a Leadership development program with Toys R Us where she served in various roles including launching the original Babiesrus.com site, Store Director of an $11 million Toys “R” Us Store, and multi-unit store management.
Allison has been recognized in the news media (TODAY Show, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes) and awarded on a national level (EY Winning Women, Working Mother, Inc. 500, Conference Board). Corps Team was named a Top 20 Woman-Owned Business in the Atlanta Business Chronicle in 2019.
Allison’s current nonprofit boards include the Alliance Theater, Harvard Business School Club of Atlanta, Galloway School Annual Fund, and UGA Terry College Emeritus Alumni Board. Allison received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BBA in Accounting from the University of Georgia. Allison is a CPA, licensed in Georgia
Connect with Allison on LinkedIn and follow Corps Team on Facebook and Twitter.
Listen to the complete North Fulton Business Radio interview with Allison here.
The “One Minute Interview” series is produced by John Ray and in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link.
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