Just-in-time hiring is here to stay

On the importance of JIT hiring, and how organisations can balance speed with accuracy

Just-in-time (JIT) hiring is a common phenomenon in most IT and BPO organisations. They have to live with it despite the obvious disadvantages of a quick hiring process. The only solution lies in making the hiring process as effective as possible and avoiding common pitfalls. The success of JIT hiring is a major strength of the Indian IT industry; it has helped it meet instant manpower demands and keep recruiting costs low.

“As organisations strive to improve the time-to-market of their solutions, hiring talent within cost and time commitments will be imperative. In order to meet aggressive timelines, factors involving the work process will be optimised. However, it is not to be confused with reckless hiring,” says Harish Bhattiprolu, Director Sales, Kenexa Technologies, India.

Companies engage recruiting agencies and work in close co-ordination with them to procure manpower. “Large organisations carry out JIT hiring using in-house resources. Infosys uses the services of over 100 in-house recruiters. The tier-two companies do not have this luxury. They usually opt for recruiting agencies,” says Kris Lakshmikanth, Founder & Managing Director, The Head Hunters India. The company has been into JIT recruitment for the last three years, and has made 3,000 offers across India on behalf of both Indian and MNC organisations.

Advance planning

The groundwork for JIT hiring is done in advance. Lakshmikanth adds that good companies use up to two hiring agencies which specialise in turnkey recruitment for JIT. “This ensures that the organisation gets full attention from the vendor (recruitment company), and an assured number of people on board as per their internal targets. To ensure that the right vendors are selected, the client company calls a select list of recruiting companies for a presentation. Based on the response of the executive search companies, one or two are shortlisted per city,” he informs. The recruitment strategy is then worked out, which includes the following:

• Target cities
• Target skills in each of the cities
• Target companies in these cities
• Fixing the venue for the interview
• Ensuring that once the technical interviews are cleared, an HR offer is made on the spot.

“Quite often a plan for one month to six weeks is made in advance. This is because of the need to book interview venues, release advertisements in the newspapers, and so on. Our experience is that if the client works closely with the recruitment companies and considers the latter as an integral part of the recruitment arm, then there is a win-win scenario leading to almost 90 percent chance of success,” states Lakshmikanth.

Reducing the time gap

The hiring time being a critical factor, every organisation needs to speed up its recruitment processes. This involves carrying out a process-mapping of the company’s recruitment/selection process. “One has to look for areas where time is unnecessarily wasted and use metrics to measure which step(s) add little value. Besides, a hiring manager should use video-conferencing to tackle scheduling issues and conduct simultaneous internal and external job postings to eliminate any waiting period for responses. Several companies which we work with create ‘corporate resource’ positions to hire superstars even when there are no roles open. The incumbents can at a later date be quickly moved into the function where a need arises,” says Vikram Bhardwaj, Managing Consultant, Redileon Executive Search. The company has an extranet service for live hiring engagements called KAP Extranet. This enables clients and candidates to view the status and progress of the search on a real-time basis, cutting short the cycle time and time to process closure.

Pointing out that good candidates for any role are not easily spotted, let alone hired, Bhardwaj adds, “We often come across big brand names failing in their attempt to hire a key resource as the candidate finds the entire hiring process unstructured and adhoc. His obvious question is—have they not hired someone like me before? What is taking them so much time, are they not sure? The inference is that candidates judge a company by the clarity they see in the company’s recruitment and selection process.”

Emphasising the need for accurate and efficient hiring, Bhattiprolu states that there is a way to achieve timelines in hiring. The solution is two-fold. The first is to ensure efficient hiring—increasing the accuracy of search via a job description, strategic sourcing of profiles and so on to achieve the required numbers. The second is accurate hiring by using measured and scientific means to assess and then select the correct people for the jobs, resulting in hiring the best. Results show that an accurate hire performs better than a quick hire.

Necessary precautions

Hiring in a hurry can lead to disaster if precautions are not taken. The short hiring time is often not enough to do a thorough reference check of the particulars provided in the resume. Head Hunters India advises its clients to tell candidates that a reference check will be done post-hiring, and if any discrepancy is found in the information provided, the services of the candidate will be terminated.

Bhardwaj lists a few essential factors for JIT.

• Setting a time limit for every step of the hiring process, including joining time for the candidate.
• Simultaneous process steps should not result in omitting an important procedure.
• Overtly aggressive salary offered may backfire.
• Have experienced and mature HR managers handle hirings where time is an important factor.

It is necessary to ensure that the hiring process works continuously towards identifying talent throughout the year, and is not limited to peak periods. Bhattiprolu acknowledges that it is essential to define the hiring process. Ownership from senior levels in management is another pre-requisite for making it a success. According to Bhattiprolu, “Organisational vision and values must be connected to the hiring process early. This ensures that associates who fit the expectations are hired and create a better working environment. The hiring process has a multitude of costs involved. All the direct and indirect costs must be recognised and measured, else the cost-of-hiring can be a rude shock to the management especially when more need to be hired.”

The problem with the recruitment process is that managements want to reduce the cost of hiring while putting pressure on the recruitment team to reduce the timelines and introduce efficiency. “Hence, organisations must recognise that such pressures may lead to incorrect hiring. Adequate measures must be taken to prevent this and realise the benefits good hiring practices can make to the income statement of the organisation,” advises Bhattiprolu.