Campus hiring is an important part of the large-scale recruitment process, unlocking access to a large talent pool at a relatively low per-head cost. The ability to tap into a pool of talent with diverse skill-sets is a major lure for companies’ large-scale hiring needs. However, the past year has upended recruitment strategy plans companies have been developing in recent years.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced organizations to rethink their strategy. The objective of a one-stop campus hiring drive is to get access to good quality talent. Firms have met campus recruitment challenges by embracing automation, big data and more to streamline their campus recruitment operations. This is nothing new but with little or no physical access at all stages of the process at the moment, it means companies have to think smarter about how they sell their company culture, learning and growth opportunities to candidates. The candidate experience is all-important now.
Of course, a completely analogue approach was not really an option anymore for large-scale hiring, even before the pandemic. There are elements of digitization at all stages of the campus hiring process and companies using more traditional methods – or a combination of old and new – were forced to reboot their processes for a pandemic new normal.
There is no one-size-fits-all template. Different strategies are used across the industry when it comes to candidate selection, screening, interviewing, and onboarding. The initial campus selection process involves having a well-established on-campus presence, which could include career fairs in the campus, campus competitions, or summer internships. These are all sources of talent acquisition. Most campuses remain off-limits so online tools are a lifeline in these uncertain times.
Challenges facing current campus recruitment
Opening up meaningful communication with job seekers in the current situation is a challenge. Candidates seriously consider brand values and want their future employer to be transparent, open and available at all stages. This is where a reboot of the social media recruiting strategy for example, could show dividends.
During a campus recruiting drive, the screening process is the one stage best suited to streamlining via tech tools – as long as the right criteria/filters are in place to measure against. There is still the danger of missing out on high quality candidates based off a resume alone. All candidates are in the same boat looking to enter the world of work with little or no work experience. This is where preliminary pre-assessment tests could make a difference.
Live video interviews didn’t suddenly just appear purely because of Covid, but it has certainly become more ubiquitous since. They give recruiters the opportunity to connect with candidates face-to-face in a virtual setting. For today’s candidates, it almost seems like second nature to freely converse over Zoom and video chat in formal and informal settings. Their familiarity with this new medium slightly diminishes the ‘energy’ of the traditional face-to-face interview, making it harder to identify key soft skills such as dealing with pressure.
Major brands are benefitting from remote recruiting models now but aren’t necessarily an ideal long term solution for every company. While it’s great to be well prepared, recruiting is all about making genuine connections. In-person career fairs aren’t going away and will be back once the pandemic is finally beaten. Even with all these newly launched digital tools and greater efficiency, companies will inevitably return to the campus one day. The key to hiring success is getting the mix of on- and off-campus initiatives right.
Hybrid Recruiting – The new era of recruitment
With Covid still raging across the globe, the virtual model of recruitment isn’t going anywhere, and it continues to evolve. During the early days of the pandemic, there was a rush towards implementing new tech-enabled recruitment tools. With obvious roadblocks to traditional in-person campus hiring, corporations transitioned to the virtual route, and most HR leaders believe it is certainly here to stay. Used effectively, a hybrid approach can yields better results than either a tradition al or tech-forward strategy can on their own.
‘The pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation across sectors and created a need for rapid and scaled deployment, thus reflected in the IT-software industry,’ according to a recently released Naukri JobSpeak report. In fact tech industry hiring has surpassed pre-pandemic levels by some margin – the report suggests a 39 per cent growth in May 2021 compared to May 2019. Kaushik Banerjee, Vice President and Business Head of Teamlease.com & Freshersworld.com, says HR tech processes will continue to drive talent acquisition, albeit with an old school personal touch element when the Covid situation allows.
The key is getting that balance right, and there is single template for this. This is where a hybrid recruitment strategy comes in. As the name suggests, hybrid recruitment incorporates both in-person and virtual processes. Although a move to virtual was forced upon many companies, other forward-thinking firms had well-established virtual recruitment trends & tools in place well before Covid. It’s time to take a leaf out of their book and rethink recruitment. A hybrid virtual/in-person combination has worked well in other areas of life, such as everyday work, education, business meetings, court cases and even virtual wedding ceremonies.
A big fundamental change since Covid has been the all-important interview. Companies and candidates have been forced to go virtual and there has been a widespread move to video interviewing. Virtual careers fairs for graduates have also started taking off, although this remains very much a work in progress. Some virtual job fairs let companies create a virtual careers booth to showcase their company and culture through videos and images. Overall, it’s still a learning curve for many companies, yet some best practices are coming to the fore.
These are all relatively new tech-enabled processes that have mostly come in as a necessity rather than a pro-active forward-thinking strategy. Still, they have discovered the value of its many benefits right away. Numerous surveys point to the vast majority of businesses continuing using digital strategies long after the pandemic ends.
What are the key benefits?
What makes organizations embrace hybrid recruitment? Innovation is at its heart, which produces a more agile mind-set. For IT companies a hybrid recruitment process shows a candidate that the organization is innovative and forward-thinking. In addition, candidates expect recruiters to be more flexible nowadays.
It can also help elevate a brand as a progressive business that continues to adapt and move forward. On a basic level, hybrid recruitment can help a HR team work faster and smarter while still being able to use a personal touch when protocols permit it. This means streamlining the often time-consuming sourcing of talent, screening, hiring and onboarding with a flexible approach.
Is there a downside to hybrid recruitment?
For any digital transformation there is an inevitable cost. Transitioning to recruitment software and other remote processes requires an initial investment which can be quite painful. However long term, it will pay for itself and contribute to a leaner, more agile HR department.
Perhaps more importantly, there a cultural shift required when employing a hybrid strategy. It isn’t as simple as a one-time move from a traditional operating model to a tech-forward one. Both can work in unison and as the pandemic has shown, a HR team needs to be able to react efficiently and deploy the right type process just at the right time. Hybrid recruitment’s main advantage is allowing maximum flexibility in fluid and often uncertain situations. The mix between tech and traditional won’t always be the same at any given time. The nature of an efficient, well thought out hybrid system (in recruitment and in other sectors) means it can be adapted to meet any challenge at a given time.
Hybrid means finding time for the human touch
There is no doubt that technology can streamline the recruitment experience for both candidates and employers, particularly when adopting remote processes. A blended recruitment approach can be used to automate so many different stages of the hiring process and the corresponding administrative support.
There are many innovative recruitment tools available that will augment the hiring process. AI-powered candidate screening, chatbots, social media targeting, productivity tech, interview scheduling tools and applicant tracking systems are just some of the options. There is no doubt a candidate’s experience is increasingly a digital one during the hiring process. In some ways, it is getting more difficult for recruiters to identify the human traits that make a great candidate for a company, at least in the initial virtual recruitment stages.
TEG Approach – Adapting to the Change
At TEG, we believe in working together as a family. With over 100+ Advanced Analytics projects delivered to our clients, we are always looking for dynamic and creative individuals.
The key to a well-balanced hybrid system of recruitment is not forgetting how important human interactions are, and we at TEG Analytics value and support this as one of our strategies today. Allowing more quality time to connect with candidates on a personal level.
We have proctor-based online tests that is created for each role. This further helps to match and shortlist the most suitable candidate and helps make use of time more effectively. It was concluded that on an average only 13% of them have been able to surpass the interviews making them ideal for the specific job.
At TEG we have our hiring in planned stages with Tier 1 being accepting applications and screening candidates from all background and not just limit to B-Tech graduates We leverage our opportunities to a vast audience as we believe in giving equal opportunity & have observed that 3.75% of candidates make it through to the next stage of the interview and hiring process.
Besides the opportunity to unlock your true potential, life at TEG offers a young, millennial workforce sprouting fresh ideas everyday, importance to your work-life balance, blind trust on your sense of responsibility and meaningful connections, to name a few.
For more details on current openings visit our careers section on our website Here.
