Article: The wave of ‘social’ in recruitment

Recruitment

The wave of ‘social’ in recruitment

The recruitment space has proliferated with the advent of technology and is witnessing unprecedented growth
The wave of ‘social’ in recruitment
 

Most Companies prefer to partner with large end-to-end service providers, instead of dealing with multiple vendors. This has also led to an increase in consolidation activity in the HR industry

 

In the past year alone, hiring activity has picked up due to a positive business sentiment in the country. While in the past two years there has also been an increase in the number of temporary workers, according to Randstad India’s CEO, Moorthy Uppaluri, this trend is also climbing up the pyramid. To add to this, the Recruitment Process Outsourcing segment has seen increased activity in the past year, given the low barriers to entry; the industry is seeing a fragment but increased competition in the marketplace. 

Despite the number of emerging small players in the market, most companies have shown increased preference to partner with large end-to-end service providers, instead of dealing with multiple vendors. This has also led to an increase in consolidation activity in the HR industry. “Consolidation within the industry will continue to happen due to the number of niche firms and opportunity in the unorganized sector” says Moorthy.

In India, the use of products and services geared towards the needs of the recruitment function started only in the early 2000s. They were mostly used as data aggregator tools and the market was dominated by MIS, Job Portals and the Boolean search. However, today there are a range of products that are using a variety of technologies including automation, big data and analytics that is redefining the role of a recruiter. “Technology has become an essential tool to uncover vital information about prospective candidates — be it the reach of social media, unleashing the potential of data analytics or simply managing talent ‘on the go,” says A.G. Rao, Group Managing Director, ManpowerGroup India. Since the concept of an employer brand has moved to social, companies are increasingly focusing on their social media presence in order to articulate their business value proposition to prospective candidates. According to a study by Career Glider, back in 2010, 78 per cent of recruiters were using LinkedIn to find candidates. 5 years later that percentage has risen to 95 per cent. Similarly, 2010 saw just 14 per cent of recruiters posting jobs on Twitter. That figure has now risen to a whopping 95 per cent. Another connected trend is increase in the number of passive candidates that companies are tapping due to social media. 

Challenges

The changing nature of work has forced companies to account for jobs and competencies that maybe relevant for the future but not clear at the moment. Except for a few industries where linear job progression is the norm, most job seekers today have diverse backgrounds, “Jobs are increasingly becoming diverse and versatile; we no longer have talent that fits a job perfectly especially in the services space” says Madhu Raghunath, Head – Human Resources, TVS & Sons. A related concern is with respect to competency mapping and the lack of assessments for recruiters to use. “As of now, assessments are still very old fashioned. There’s going to be a big change in the way people get assessed; the traditional method of face-to-face interviews and tests will soon lose their relevance” says Gautam Sinha, CEO, CBR. “Companies are already moving towards video-based recruitment. Even social rating, peer ratings are closely being looked at while recruiting” he adds.

Despite all this, the job market in India is also seeing a volatile attrition rate with candidates accepting offers but not showing up to work on the first day, “We are seeing a trend of volatile attrition due to the increase in the number of opportunities. The Indian employee is now known for last minute drop outs or for changing jobs quickly, this trend in the long run will not span out well for India Inc.” asserts Moorthy.

Opportunities

Technology-based product solutions are not only opening new opportunities in the recruitment space, there are also transforming the role of a recruiter. The landscape today “is seeing a lot of products that claim to aggregate on social media” notes Naveen Narayanan, Arrows Global Group. Unlike earlier, when the recruitment function would be tasked with accommodating large scale hiring plans within a short span of time, the use of big data is helping recruiters understand “workforce trends, channels for hiring and in understanding candidate considerations - which candidates will choose you and why” says Naveen. According to Gautam Sinha, the use of mobile as the preferred platform for both, the recruiter and a prospective candidate has been driven primarily by the preference of the younger generation. While technological solutions bring about efficiency in hiring practices, respondents also noted the importance of retaining human touch points in the process. 

 

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Topics: Recruitment, #Social Media, #TheNowAndTheNext

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