For more than 50 years, Godshall Recruiting in Greenville, South Carolina has successfully paired job candidates with employers using a proven process of phone screening and in-person interviews. Just a day after a statewide quarantine order in 2020, however, all 30 employees suddenly had to pivot to a new way of working: from home, with company-owned devices, and with all their documents and communication in Microsoft Teams.
“We had already been using Microsoft 365 for business for a number of years, mostly for email,” explains Karen Truesdale, Vice President of Administration at Godshall. “But we never dreamed how easily it would allow us to move everyone to a remote work environment that was also pretty secure. Within 24 hours of the quarantine order impacting our area, we were up and running remotely.”
Remote productivity
The managers and admins at Godshall had been using Microsoft Teams for months, but now everyone—including the bulk of its employees who are in frontline recruiting roles—relies on it daily.
For example, managers and admins disseminate information in Teams via chat, and they join up for staff video calls of up to 18 people at a time every week. Recruiters conduct interviews and stay in contact with candidates, employers, and each other using video calls, chat channels, and file sharing.
“With Teams, we can send information to employees quickly, and keep everyone connected and on the same page,” says Truesdale. “We’ve even used it to set up interviews between candidates and our clients.”
Virtual face-to-face recruiting
Although Godshall’s many recruiters were new to Teams, they quickly discovered the advantages of virtual interviews for their work.
“We can capture a candidate’s communication style and professionalism much better using virtual interviews in Teams than by phone,” says Truesdale. “Video calls also let us replicate almost every benefit we see from in-person meetings. With Teams, we haven’t skipped a beat when it comes to our recruiting.”
Another gain is the ability to store a candidate’s files, contact records, and video interviews on OneDrive, and then access them through file sharing and task sharing in Teams.
“Using OneDrive and Microsoft Teams for collaboration all day, every day, within and across our teams, helps us leverage the knowledge of others,” says Truesdale. “Many recruiters, for example, will ping a teammate to meet a candidate who is qualified for a role in another field, and all the materials are right there. It’s been seamless!”
Security that works from home
The recruiting industry is a prime target for cybercrime, so naturally Godshall is highly security focused. The company uses Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to protect against malicious links in emails from external sources, and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to protect against unauthorized access to accounts and documents.
The IT partner for Godshall helped the company upgrade to Microsoft 365 Business Premium a few years ago, and deployed the ATP and MFA features to every account as part of the new subscription plan. Godshall also increased security with features such as mobile device management (MDM) with Microsoft Intune, which has allowed the firm to remotely erase business data from lost or stolen devices in the past year protecting company content.
“We use a mix of Windows 10, Android, and iOS devices with Teams, and we feel very comfortable with our security measures with Microsoft 365”, notes Truesdale.
A new preferred process
Despite being 100 percent offsite since March 19, recruiters have used Teams exclusively to interview more than 100 candidates a week—the same number as before the shutdown.
“Our clients have not noticed any disruption in our communications or process because we were able to transition to virtual meetings in Teams so quickly and smoothly”, declares Truesdale. “We like how professional, easy, and secure it all is. In fact, our recruiters enjoy using Teams so much that they have asked to continue using it even after all work restrictions have lifted.”
Of course, the answer is “yes”.
The way we work has changed – likely forever. Technology is helping companies navigate these changes while keeping teams connected and productive. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like to learn more about how we are helping other companies transition to and support remote work.
