Companies are reworking their recruitment strategies to win the talent war. Social networking websites such as LinkedIn are only new ammunition to claim victory

You definitely put hoardings across busy junctions of a city to promote your products and services. Would you do the same when it comes to hiring key talent from the market? Probably not.

But when Tesco, the British retail giant, set up its service support arm in Bangalore in 2004, it spent a huge chunk of its recruitment budget on hoardings. It was important for the firm to build its employer brand. This was because a majority of its prospective recruits, had either never heard of Tesco, or had no shopping experience at any of its stores across 13 countries. “We put hoardings in the corridor where IT folks travel, and Bangalore having slow moving traffic, you can’t even escape it,” says Sudeesh Venkatesh, Head, HR, Tesco HSC.

The company not only altered the medium but also the message. Some of Tesco HSC’s IT recruitment campaigns showed potatoes and carrots, while the underline message was that “you use technology to keep food fresh.”

The move by Tesco HSC is just an example of how companies are working on innovative ideas with the ultimate goal of attracting the best minds. Talent crisis is not just restricted to the hiring part alone. Training and retention also pose big challenges. Given the demand-supply gap in the market, firms devise multi-prong strategies to beat competition. This includes campus recruitments, internal job postings, employee-referrals, availing the services of placement consultants, participating in job fairs and advertising in newspapers and job portals. The trend, however, is now moving towards leveraging the benefits of online social networking. Many companies are now bringing in global talent on board, with the clear intention of meeting their client requirements in specific
geographies. Also, welcoming ex-employees back into the fold in no more an exception.

The Shift
The hiring scenario has witnessed dramatic changes in the past decade with companies facing increasing talent crunch. This is also because new sectors such as retail have come on the horizon. While the number of people joining the workforce is a plenty, “employable” brains are in short supply. Employees are now calling the shots, with companies ready to offer benevolent “benefits” packages that promise superb “work-life balance.” “In the past decade, we have witnessed the transition from being an employers’ market to that of an employee,” says Monisha Advani, Managing Director, Randstad India.

The IT-ITES sector, considered to be the most lucrative from an employee’s point of view, has bore the biggest brunt of this transition. Such is the movement that a separate IT recruitment industry has taken shape. “It has become an ultra-competitive market, with soaring employee turnover and widening demand-supply gap. This has made the industry to be very aggressive and innovative,” says Ravi Shankar, Global Head, Talent Management Group, HCL Technologies.

What’s In, What’s Out
In view of the challenges on the manpower front, most companies have reworked their hiring strategies. Rajesh A R, Vice President (Temporary Staffing) at TeamLease Services says the importance given to referrals has grown multifold in the last few years. “More than 50% of placements at TeamLease are done though referrals. We believe that this trend would further firm up with the advent of various social networking sites,” he adds.

Take the case of Tata Motors. The automotive giant has adopted some new methods of hiring, while retaining traditional ones. It runs an employee referral program. “Through this, we encourage the involvement and participation of our current work force for recruiting the right talent,” says Sangram Tambe, Vice President, Human Resources, Tata Motors. It also uses an online recruitment system, internal job posting service and various employer-branding initiatives.

"Job fairs, online talent auctions and talent referral programs, job sites, walk-in tours of employer campuses are just some of the popular means to bring home the best," says Advani. "Apart from this, unorthodox means of canvassing candidates and talent through street profiling is also gaining momentum, given the industry’s appetite for more to manage," she adds. Private sector firms are also poaching heavily into public sector companies and the armed forces.

"Newspaper advertisements were given preference five years back. A few years back, the platform shifted to web portals for increasing ROI. Now blogging seems to be the buzz word," says Rajesh.

The rules of the hiring game differ significantly in the case of mass- and class-hiring. Mass-hiring strategies work best for junior profiles, where the skill-set required does not vary much, while class-hiring is done for mid- and senior-level profiles. "For class-hiring, organizations engage executive search firms and some authenticated internal references," says Sampath Shetty, Vice President (Permanent Staffing) at TeamLease Services.

Rajesh believes there has been a significant shift from the “carpet bombing” approach (mass approach) to niche hiring (class approach). "Lot of recruitment companies are segmenting candidates based on behavioral patterns, demographics, etc., rather than just on skill sets to address the recruitment needs," he adds.

Comments (8)

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Hiring - A sales function
written by Renuka, March 30, 2009

Recruitment has now become a sales function. When you are hiring people in bulk, its important how you sell yourself in the market and how you are percieved by your target market.

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A new concept in hiring
written by Ajay Tiwari, March 22, 2009

Hi,
I am happy to see most of the hiring strategies, mentioned at one place, are mostly in practice. Most of the giants are using them - But the benefit is different. WHAT you do is important but HOW you do is more important.
I have always believed in "Unity in Diversity". When the problems are common - Make your goal common. Team work can do wonders.We can utilize the redeployment pool available with each other after checking our requirement and fitment criteria.

People are unemployed not only b'coz there are no vacancies but there is no information. We can give more brainstorming to the broad subject by thinking towards Mission Employment.
I am ready to contribute more on the same and some really innovative practices that I have planned to use in my next assignment as a hiring lead. Am open to your questions on tiwari_a@rediffmail.com.
Thanks

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CEO
written by Shivaji Mukthavaram, March 20, 2009

I concur with the recruitment strategy evolution and also i feel that it is not yet complete without the "virtual recruitment" evolution which is picking up. Virtual recruitment adds two major benefits to the companies... 1. Time-to-hire: Well & quick connectivity (using video and microphone) at job seekers desktop and
2. Cost-to-hire: It is pretty cheap to conduct a Virtual Job Fair / Virtual Seminar to attract professionals / Conduct online interviews / Online campus recruitment to hire from different locations at the same time to build cross cultural teams.
On the similar lines, i have started a new venture www.jobafair.com and appreciate your feedback.

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Good Strategies
written by Maria, March 16, 2009

Strategies of this article is very lovely and useful.

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Scope for better stratergies
written by Ralston Coelho, November 21, 2008

Hi,

This article is good. But I think the strategies could have been more innovative.

It's always great to see articles with quotes from senior HR personnel. It helps you aware of what's happening in different companies.

But I feel that the strategies mentioned about are old, which everyone is using. It's strange that no one has used the Mobile platform for recruitments yet. Sizeable portion of the target recruits would have access to a mobile phone.

NDTV jobs had come up with a scheme where a person could refer his/ her friend and if he/she gets selected, they stand to benefit. Though the model bombed, I feel the future in technologies and platforms like these!!!

Cheers

Ralston

www.ralstonraz.blogspot.com

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Really innovative!!
written by Aarthi, November 12, 2008

Nice coverage on the role of social networking sites on hiring process.Another fast-growing hiring strategy is hiring talented women at home.Due to family commitments,many professional women opt to quit their career,but not their desire for learning and a comeback career.Many new schemes like Tata's second career for women,Pepsico's job recruitment advertisements focussed upon recruiting women only etc.. are all set to explore this new arena.Also online portals like gharkamai.com, target experienced professional women at home, to outsource project work posted by their clients.Gharkamai.com claims that India has the largest pool of professional stay at home women, so are confident about making the best possible use of this workforce.

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...
written by Manjula, August 26, 2008

I don't think that this article offers any out of the box methods of hiring talent. All that has been talked about are the good old ways of recruitment or the few new ones that are being used by one n all.

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...
written by S A Uday Kailash, August 23, 2008

your article about hiring strategies is really very good. i am an HR student in Amity Business School and it is very useful for me. we have an HR magazine in our college can you write an article of this kind for our magazine. waiting for your reply.

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