When I first thought of writing this article, I thought it would be interesting to write about ‘How can we engage people with online experiences in traditionally offline activities?’
Then, the Corona outbreak hit and I realised a more pressing issue is now ‘How can we bring the offline experience (the human touch) into online?’.
These issues were here before COVID-19 and will remain when the crisis passes. The idea now is to learn from these challenging times so we are capable of doing better now and in the future.
I’m Joana and I work as UX/UI designer at Landing.Jobs. I’m passionate about people and connections and I dream of a world where online and offline can complement each other to create greater connections. So, let me tell you about transmedia experiences and how I believe they will impact the candidate experience.
First, what is a transmedia experience?
It’s clear — for an experience to be transmedia it means that it has a narrative that unfolds through several different platforms being online and/or offline.
Let’s focus for a moment on the job search and the consequent transition to more and more online recruitment processes: most of the times it is at least 70% online now[my personal statistics]. The search is fully online and the recruitment processes are using more and more online assessment tools. Interviewing can be done online with tools such as Zoom or Google Hangouts. Tech assessments with the help of tools such as HackerRank. And even skills and personality tests can be done using tools such as Bryq.
Of course, companies that are already fully remote have been running these processes for some time, but there are still companies that are not ready to go fully remote. With the outburst of COVID-19, they are being forced to do so.
At Landing.Jobs we believe the human touch is crucial for a successful business and a motivated team. When forced to face this reality we went looking for tools that would help bring that human touch, such as Sneek, which could bring some of the sense of office familiarity.
“Changes in communication have been pointed out to be one of the main challenges within the Technology team at Landing.Jobs. The other problem we’re facing is that we lose the close contacts we used to have with other areas within the company.
For Devs, productivity has been pumping, but for Product communication is even more important now.”
I could make this article all about the tools that can help during these times, but I want to look ahead. I believe recruitment processes are transmedia experiences. Digital media have brought new conceptions and perspectives about space and audiences, which have both switched to be global and multiple. The online space spreads into several different platforms and channels of communication but we believe that the live part is also included in the whole experience in any business.
What about searching for a job or engaging in a recruitment process? That is also a transmedia experience: the candidate experience should have a narrative that is well thought of and carried out through the several platforms with which they will interact.
I also believe that our whole careers can be well designed transmedia experiences. That we should have a narrative and that each job, onsite or remote, should be part of a plan that makes sense for each of us, maybe in this case a career manager can act as an experience designer.
So, what’s the challenge we’re facing?
What I believe will be important in the future is that we make sure that, as good transmedia experiences, these will be unified experiences, well designed, for the user (or participant, a force of habit, sorry) to feel that every contact with the process is part of a whole and that it is entangled to feel like one.
As our Talent Acquisition Specialist, Rita Gouveia wrote: “the candidate’s experience no longer only lies on the face-to-face interviews, but on all the interactions that can happen meanwhile” (article written in Portuguese for Pessoas Magazine).
“Recruitment processes switching to online experiences bring a challenge: to make sure that candidates are not bouncing between applications and losing the feeling of a complete, unified experience.”
We cannot fall into the trap of turning Recruitment processes into full online experiences. That won’t be the only scenario since I believe the human touch that provides you with a unique connection will be the differentiating factor. A simple gesture such as sending a hiring kit or a team t-shirt will add another dimension to it.
We can become fully remote, and these times are the proof, but we won’t stop being human, we won’t stop using multiple platforms to recruit, neither to work. Fully remote or partially remote, these are still transmedia experiences. I believe we have started an era where everything is transmedia so, the question is: will it be designed? Will the whole experience be a unified one?
Joana Flores
UX/UI Designer @ Landing.Jobs
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