As part of People Matters’ TA Leadership League series, Adil Nargolwala, Senior General Manager – HR Head Talent acquisition Group, WNS spoke about how technology can act as an enabler in the recruitment process. Automating recruitment has proved to be a blessing for many organizations and can effectively be leveraged in the recruitment re-engineering process. Re-engineering recruitment results in a faster, more efficient, and economical process. This re-engineering is highly driven by the use and development of technology in any given organisation across sectors.

Adil stresses on two different parts of technology-Technology that can be used off the hand and the other which is developed at the backend. Backend technology is something that people at the recruitment level won’t understand. Backend of technology is usually custom made and is developed as per the requirement of the company. Today the workforce is getting younger; gadgets in the market are also easily available. So what the recruiters can do is make use of the backed technology through their technology at hand, for instance, their smartphones, to make the recruitment process simpler.

Adil distinguished between technology as a recruiting medium and as an enabler in the recruitment process. He said that the basic blocks of recruitment, like looking and sourcing resumes for job openings, interacting with various candidates for references and finally closing the process with a suitable candidate, will never change. It will not change the basic metrics of recruitment, but will make the process simpler and less time intensive. Technology therefore is more of an ingredient that enables this entire process.

Today, social media plays an important role as technology that drives talent acquisition. Social media is the most efficient way to reach people today. By hitting social medium, a recruiter has a huge reach. Today brand building has become such an easy process through communication via social media, which in turn contributes to more efficient recruitment. “LinkedIn,” says Adil, “is the most significant development in this regard.”

Automation and use of technology in the talent acquisition process has made it possible to crunch higher volumes of recruitment in a shorter span of time. Further, technology has a direct impact on the cost of recruitment. Firstly, it reduces the number of recruiters in the recruitment process. For instance, when the recruiter productivity increases through the use of technology, the number of recruiters can be brought down. Moreover, with automation regular manual follow ups can be avoided and the entire process becomes less time intensive. All of these factors have a direct impact on the total cost of recruitment.

As the company grows, the process of recruitment becomes robust and use of technology becomes more crucial. Especially for companies that are looking into big number of hires, technology will serve a crucial enabler. However, use of technology involves high amount of investment, and companies should avoid the common pitfalls that automation and adoption of technology entails. For instance, it is important not to rush into adoption of technology because if the adopted technology fails then time and money goes to waste and the entire management process gets hampered.

Key Takeways:

·         Technology is integral to re-engineering recruitment process for efficient outcomes.

·         Not all are aware of the every kind of technology, so it becomes necessary to support the backend technology with in-hand technology

·         Use of automation and technology in talent acquisition helps in improving recruiter productivity.