As social hiring and innovation in recruitment channels takes a center stage, GTM and People Matters join hands to create a model to identify organizations that are able to “attract, inform, inspire and engage”, through their corporate websites and social media strategies. Around 300 companies across verticals participated in the Study, which focused both on qualitative as well as quantitative inputs, to identify key trends and challenges in social media hiring

Organizations are not merely competing with each other for customers and clients; but more for quality talent. With the demand supply mismatch as a given, organizations are looking for any edge to win this zero sum game. As traditional methods of using consultants and job boards provide decreasing marginal returns, companies are trying to directly reach and engage with the talent through their career websites, employees, alumni and social media.

‘Talent Sourcing’ and ‘Hiring’ are undergoing the most radical transformation since the introduction of the browser and job boards 15 years ago. The talent in prime hiring age generation (18-35 years) has grown in the age of the internet, live in the era of smart phones, and for them social media is the new normal. They seek information about product and services, find jobs, evaluate employment options using company websites, their social network and expect prompt, accurate, 24X7 access to information. Companies in India are responding to this change and are executing plans to leverage social media to make their company career sites a ‘candidate magnet’ and become an ‘employer of choice’.

‘Social Hiring’ is fast becoming the leading source for talent, supplementing consultants and job boards. GTM research suggests that most leads for talent will come from extended referrals as the referral leads will extend beyond employees to include the company’s alumnus, and the alumni’s extended social network, further expanding the reach of the company by 100X. In a recent survey of 2,045 candidates 63 percent of passive job seekers found jobs through ‘Social Hiring – Social Referrals’ and ‘Alumni Referrals’ - while 42 percent of active job seekers find jobs through ‘Social Hiring’.

The Study

The Global Talent Metric (GTM) – People Matters, “Most Talent Friendly Website” is an effort to identify and recognize the best among the top 300 private sector employers with over 5,000 employees in India that provide the best experience of ‘an employer of choice to their prospective talent community. GTM has a proprietary framework to evaluate career sites (web and social media) in terms of their ability to attract, inform, inspire, engage and respect the potential talent.

The model goes beyond just the aesthetics and seeks to identify basics from how easy is it to find the job section on their website, to most complex area like how effective is the use of the social hiring tools (LinkedIn, Facebook). The framework covers all details regarding access to information about the job, about career prospects, videos, testimonial and all elements which could help a potential recruit make an informed decision. This framework identifies how strategic and mature the design and execution of the online recruitment practice is in Indian organizations.

The Methodology

Websites of all private sector companies with more than 5,000 employees were evaluated on 28 dimensions that generated their Talent Friendly Index (TFI). The results were thereafter assessed by an independent panel of 7 judges with diverse background in terms of roles, functions and industries.
In parallel, questionnaires were e-mailed to HR heads of the targeted companies inviting them for self-disclosure and rate their own websites while also requesting them for additional general information.

The Talent Friendliness Index (TFI) Matters

Companies in the top half of the TFI generated 50 percent higher ROCI as compared with the companies in the bottom half of TFI. Companies that understand the value of human capital, recognize the need to attract, engage, hire (retain) them and invest in technology, tools and processes that provide a competitive advantage to their recruiters. Good organizations optimize their capital deployment to across business priorities and opportunities to maximize shareholder value. Technology is rapidly changing the hiring game and HR leaderships that have invested and innovated through hiring technology have significantly contributed to creating shareholder value.

Way forward

The Study shows that Indian organizations a) are recognizing the value of social hiring, corporate career sites, b) although until now many have underinvested in these key areas and c) can garner significant ROI when they invest in technology that enables direct access and communication with talent through social hiring and web technology.

Social hiring is rapidly changing the hiring landscape. There is new breed of hiring software that leverage social media platforms like Facebook and Tweeter called ‘Social Hiring Applications’ that allow companies to automate access to this talent pool of over 40 million people and growing, and empower their employees to become more effective in referring. Career websites are very effective tools to inform and inspire talent, but are becoming less cost effective to attract talent as social media sites like Facebook are taking away time people can spend or want to spend on other web sites.

The survey is an attempt to benchmark and baseline corporate job sites - web and social media based - to understand how it can help a company to attract, engage and hire the best talent. Going forward, companies will need to incorporate social hiring tools to attract talent and cost effectively reach out to talent while use their career site to provide in-depth information about their company and why they are the ‘employer of choice’ for the right talent.

In this new scenario, the HR function in general and the talent acquisition manager in particular, will start changing their language and talk about recruitment as a profit center and not a cost center anymore. Embracing social hiring and utilizing the corporate websites effectively to attract candidates will generate significant saving in hiring costs in terms of reduced consultant fees, newspaper advertisement costs and job board posting and login charges.

Key Findings from the Study

• Social media hiring is mainstream: 4 out of 5 top employers in India use social media for hiring, and 2 out of 3 have a corporate page on social media platform
• BFSI, IT/ITeS and Telecom are the most evolved industries in terms of the talent friendliness
• Interestingly 90 percent of the companies surveyed claim that they have successfully hired from corporate job sites while it contributes to only 20 percent of the hires
• 60 percent of the respondents intend to increase investment towards social hiring, employee referral and career sites in 2012
• Companies with high Talent Friendliness Index (TFI) have 46 percent higher ‘Return on Invested Capital’ (ROIC)
• While 85 percent of the companies have career or job links on their main page and 70 percent of them give due prominence to it, but only 28 percent have links to social media

And the Winners are…

Best-in-Class Global Companies with Global and Indian HQ

High Scores in the four elements of the framework (high quality, good unique branding and quality response to job applications)

1 Kotak Mahindra Bank
2 American Express
3 General Electric

Best-in-Class Global Companies with Indian HQ

High Scores in the four elements of the framework (high quality, good unique branding and quality response to job applications)

1 Kotak Mahindra Bank
2 Bajaj Capital
3 Reliance Capital

Social Media Award Global Companies with Indian HQ

Leverages social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to attract, engage and source candidates

1 American Express
2 Accenture
3 CSC India

Social Media Award Indian Companies

Leverages social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to attract, engage and source candidates

1 Wipro
2 Geometric
3 Keane India

Most Inspirational Site

It goes beyond traditional means to engage with candidates and create an experience on what it means to work there. Optimal use of messages, videos, testimonial etc.

1 Kotak Mahindra Bank
2 Reliance Capital
3 Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories

Top 5 Factors that make the winners, winners

1. A clear vision to own and manage the employer brand and create a relationship with the talent community on the web and social media

2. Recognition that web and social media are the primary, and in many case, the only source from where people seek information and experience an employer brand

3. Executing the strategy with an aesthetic, inspiring and functional career site that is tuned to the need of the potential talent and respectful for the candidate’s interest for the brand and their time

4. Presence at social media platforms for basic interaction

5. Common features in corporate websites of the best-in-class winners:
a. Website is implemented effectively
b. They aesthetically are inspiring, pleasing and engaging
c. The career site engages and tells a story about what it is like to work for the company, its people and the culture
d. Easy to search for jobs and easy to apply
e. Shows the human side of the company providing videos and messages from CXOs and pictures of employees and their stories

What the Jury has to say...

Corporate websites targeting candidates
Anupam Prakash, Partner & Regional Leader-Cross Boarder Consulting, Mercer

“Corporate websites were designed for consumers or partners, and not really for job seekers. Companies have realized that this is not sufficient anymore. On the one hand they are grappling with talent crunch, and hence any means to reach out candidates needs to be explored; on the other hand, the new generation is looking for information on the net and hence employers need to make this available.”

Using social media to identify brand evangelists
Gautam Ghosh, Platform Evangelist and India Marketing, BraveNewTalent

“Social media is where people are spending most of their time and engaging with others even in India. Using social media companies can find out who their ‘brand evangelists’ (both internally – employees – and externally- candidates) are, and encourage and empower them to talk about the company to their friends and networks.”

Correlation with Return on Investment
Elango R, CHRO, MphasiS

“What is really interesting is that there is a connection between a good corporate website & social media strategy hiring and return on invested capital (ROIC). The topic is not about aesthetics and ease of use, it is really a business discussion.”

The value of traditional sources of recruitment is low
Dr. Shalini Sarin, Vice President- HR Country Partner, Schneider Electric

“Young people are most influenced by parents, websites, teachers and friends, in that order. Surprisingly, the value of using advertisements as a source of information about jobs and careers is extremely low.”

The Jury Team: Anupam Prakash, Partner & Regional Leader-Cross Boarder Consulting, Mercer; Gautam Ghosh, Head India Marketing Brave New Talent & blogger; Elango R, CHRO, MphasiS; Judhajit Das, CHRO, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance; Sanjeev Prasad, CIO, Genpact; Shalini Sarin, VP- HR, Schneider Electric

Ranjan Sinha is an alumnus of IIT Roorkee, IIM Bangalore and Wharton. He has founded and directed number of award winning internet companies and service companies in the area of human resources in India and the USA.

Disclaimer: Talent Friendly Index and Framework are property of GTM and cannot be used, distributed or replicated w/o prior permission