Feature

Streamlining online recruitment

Online recruiters are now able to leverage the latest technological advancements to streamline the whole hiring process, writes Nivedan Prakash

Technology has been a boon in this fast growing world. Application of technology has also been evolving and definitely it is providing better ways of doing things today. And when it comes to the HR space, new technologies and techniques are being adopted by online recruitment agencies to make the hiring process more streamlined, efficient and simpler.

The challenges that HR faces today predominantly revolve around hiring. This stems from talent shortages to meet the growing needs of the company in a high growth economy, high attrition rates ranging from 20% to 30% across industries and even higher in BFSI and BPO, and spiraling salaries in the managerial segment.

Today almost 60% to 80% of open positions are supported by recruitment agencies. However, there is no technology platform that is available currently for them to transact online in a seamless and transparent manner. Today technical requirements are handled by functional HR teams whose clarity and understanding of those requirements itself is a big question. This problem can be solved by corporates defining their requirements in a more detailed manner.

Meanwhile, the technology solution most commonly used by HR for recruitment is the job portals. However, the reality of the job portals are that a significant portion of the candidate database is passive, hence identifying a ‘suitable’ and ‘active’ candidate from a job portal becomes extremely painful for recruiters. The job portals can be used for headhunting, which is a specialized activity typically the forte of recruitment agencies. Also, active job seekers at the mid to senior level job seekers may not prefer to take the portal route to advertise their resumes and typically interact with recruitment agencies to find a suitable position.

But technology at times may tend to cut down on the time spent in human interventions and process interactions. In such cases, the interviews become an insignificant element in the chain of highly professional recruitment process. This could be harmful. All new technology comes at a significant cost. The pressure on price performance vis-a- vis time and accuracy has always been a challenge.

Role of technology

Technological advancements like video resumes, teleconference interviews, amongst others are helping the online recruitment agencies better their recruitment process, thus making it more efficient and simpler. The technologies available today enhance preliminary screening of candidates in a big way. This way the recruitment agencies defeat the distance and gain access to a bigger pool of talent.

With the coming of technology in this space, the reach to resource has got fast and specific. Logistics has been simplified a lot. For example, earlier to fill a middle management position and in the post-screening of resume, the recruiter would have had to wait till the applicant from a distant location could make himself/herself available for interview at the location/venue preferred by the recruiter. This would in turn depend on so many factors like the applicant getting those many number of days leave from existing employer, getting the travel arrangements like rail reservations, etc. Now all this is almost passé, as a conference call could be fixed up at any time mutually convenient to both the parties. This saves time, money and energy for both the recruiter as well as the applicant.

Online databases have come of age. The recruitment firms could reach candidates through SMS and interact with them in a very short time. The interviewing techniques have as well evolved and refined. Today the interviews do not necessarily start with ‘Tell me something…’ question and end with ‘Will get back to you…’ answer. Interviewers ask for candidates’ exposures, specific function related experiences in details, psychologists become a part of the interview panel, differential aptitude and personality types are accessed before taking the recruitment decision, competency mapping tools are applied, etc. Generally, every organization applies a mix of the various tools available.

Talking about the role of technology in the hiring process, Ajit Varwandkar, Managing Director, FS Management, said, “Technological intervention has made the process more simple and streamlined. There is relatively more output per unit time input today. Better the application and use of technology, exponential improvement in performance and productivity. Technological vitality ensures that one consistently shifts focus from the ‘best’ processes to the ‘next’ processes.”

The biggest single advantage of technology is the saving of TAT (Turn Around Time). Besides, reduction in screening and interview time, from the time required to reach the right candidate to their joining lead time is reduced. This apart, the chances of reaching the right candidate has dramatically increased, which was not the case in the pre-technology era.

Today technology is helping in the recruitment process to a great extent. The recruiters can have access to thousands of CVs in a short span of time. With the help of technology, recruiters can put the right kind of filter to ensure that the person who has already been interviewed for a particular position is not called again and thus the right candidate is short-listed. Technology can also be put in use to filter the CVs to find out each and every detail of the candidates.

Adding further, Bhartendu Narera, DGM-HR, Wartsila India, commented, “With the use of technology, the time required in the recruitment process is certainly reduced to a great deal and the whole process has become shorter and faster. Technology saves a lot of time for everyone involved in the recruitment process.”

Applicant tracking systems

Just as ERP systems have automated the critical functions of sales, finance, accounting, manufacturing, etc; today the recruitment function needs the support of technology to address the challenges they face.

Technology solutions that can address these problems are Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to automate the recruitment process. This system is being utilized by Expertus, the US-based training outsourcing organization, which offers Human Resource Outsourcing, Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Training Process Outsourcing and Employability training in India.

An ATS could provide complete visibility to recruitment agencies on candidate progression through the interview process. This helps the recruitment agency to engage the candidate and take the process towards closure. The workflow is very streamlined in an ATS, as the internal position approval process is automated so there is no time wasted in getting approvals. The job description is well defined and the same is communicated online to all recruitment agencies. Requirement definition clarity leads to qualitative improvement in candidate sourcing. Hiring managers having access to the system and can enter their candidate interview evaluations, so the workload is better distributed and HR has more time on hand to undertake tasks like response management, candidate engagement, vendor feedback, which are either taking a back seat or not done at all. All information collected during the recruitment process can be powerfully leveraged through better real-time reports and performance metrics that it offers.

Srini Krishnamurthi, Managing Director, Expertus, explained, “With an ATS all resumes received from recruitment agencies are online so there is no need to receive resumes via e-mail and then store them in folders. When resumes are received via e-mail it is hard to search and it is not easy to correlate candidate performance on interviews to future requirements. Speed is of the essence in today’s recruitment scene, the quicker you can link available candidates to one or more positions the quicker it is to fill those positions. Re-starting the process all over again every time a position opens up means there is a lot of time wasted and we are not leveraging the fact that candidates have gone through multiple rounds of interview with the company and reaching out to those candidates who almost made it earlier is more meaningful.”

An ATS can quickly search for candidates via keywords and also tie them to interview performances in the past. This is a very useful feature as it allows HR to go back to resumes received in the past and see if they match the current requirement or match resumes to other requirements.

Artificial Intelligence search

In order to find the right candidate, Artificial Intelligence (AI) search is being utilized by whereismyboss.com, an online recruitment agency. AI builds analytical and predictive models on candidates’ profile. Once a resume enters the AI database, AI searches the apt candidates’ profile based on pattern search and match and delivers 95% accurate results. AI segments a particular candidate’s resume based on specific criteria which makes the retrieval process quicker during search. Predictive technologies are used to score the candidate most compatible for the job.

Naveen Chander, COO, whereismyboss.com, commented, “To give a structured search mechanism, we have introduced AI on the job portal platform, wherein we do pattern search instead of keyword search. With AI search, the complete pattern of the job description will be matched with the job profile of a particular individual. By doing this, we will be able to be very specific on the skill sets against the job description and we will also be able to score the ranks for the candidates available. In this process, you didn’t waste your time going through the complete profile and thus you get to know the right candidate for the right job.”

The agency is also using a live online video interview technique, called ‘Live Connect’. Live Connect is a kind of video conferencing facility that can be downloaded that requires 128 Kbps connection, a web cam, and a mike. It is the agency’s patented technology.

Explaining further, Chander said, “On a Web 2.0 platform, we were the first one to create a video conferencing or rather say interaction between two individuals online. Through Live Connect, you can be online and schedule interview on our portal specifically targeting the job seekers, short listing them and providing an opportunity breaking the geographical barriers. This is what Live Connect can facilitate.”

Besides, whereismyboss.com takes in use ‘resume extraction’ technique too. Unlike other job portals, where a job seeker has to first register and then fill up the details, resulting in a huge loss of time, job seekers just need to upload resumes in any format on whereismyboss.com. The information then gets extracted and the time taken is less than a minute. And after the extraction, it is set in an industry specific structure.

Other technologies

Apart from Internet and SMS, some of the breakthrough innovations are tools like tele conferencing, video conferencing, video resumes, amongst others.

In large scale recruitment drives such as campus recruitment, assessments/tests are used to quickly filter only those candidates qualifying for the next round. These assessments are both online as well as paper based. A broader application of this beyond entry level positions would help HR in spending time only with qualified candidates rather than consuming the time of hiring managers to screen many candidates. There are more advanced online adaptive testing systems which can list out the areas of strength and areas of improvement with a short test. Such tests give objective feedback on the quality of the candidate and they are standardized across all candidates applying for the position.

Varwandkar added, “We provide end-to-end solutions to our clients that include FSMIPL resume data bank scan and search on our portal www.fsindiacareers.com.”

Emerging trends One of the emerging trends in India in the recruitment space is Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), which has been widely accepted in the West and there are many players in this space.

In India the do-it-yourself approach has led to HR teams becoming large and predominantly focusing on talent acquisition. This has led to decreased focus on other functions of HR such as employee engagement, learning and development, progression management, benefits analysis, performance measurements, amongst others.

The opportunity that RPO presents to HR is cost reduction and/or improved performance and shifting focus to long-term organization building activities.

Another trend that is picking up fast is virtual interview process. Interacting with people on a virtual platform will grow day by day.

Meanwhile, the recruiters will have to work in an all the more focused manner with their clients. The strategic need would be to develop anticipatory/ready replacement database for critical positions. This will help to reduce the recruitment lead time considerably.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com