Xobin Talks🎙️2.0 | Virtual Campus Recruitment 🎓

As a part of Xobin’s annual initiative, Xobin Talks 2.0, Episode 1 was conducted on the 21st of September 2022, wherein our key speaker Mr. Arun Karthik AVP HR, Equitas Small Finance Bank discussed and enlightened on the questions that were encompassing the important areas of recruitment like employee retention, upskilling, talent acquisition and management.

When asked about campus and university hiring the main roadblock in hiring young talents was how you list out the colleges where you go for the recruitment process, which according to the speaker depends on the requirements and roles that you are recruiting for. For a top managerial and important position though you need a fresher you go to a tier 1 or tier 2 college, whereas when you need to recruit in huge numbers you get in touch with the tier 2 or tier 3 colleges, so practically it is impossible to zero in on one college where you conduct your mass recruitment.

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He also emphasized that campus recruitment is not a single man’s role but that again relies on the size of the organization, if the size of an organization is small where the recruitment size is around 10 to 15, one HR might be capable of handling the recruitment process end to end. Whereas, if the organization is large where recruitment at a time is around 5000 to 6000 candidates on a quarterly basis a dedicated recruitment team of around 15 to 20 people will be required to handle the recruitment process end to end. He was of the opinion that inclusivity of diversion in the recruitment process is in the initial stage and it depends on the philosophy of the organization in which it functions.

In another instance, when asked about the changes in the recruitment trends in the present year 2022 compared to the years 2017 and 2018 since technology improvises every 4 to 5 years, the opinion was that, candidates in the present situation, expect a more personalized experience during the recruitment and onboarding process. Onboarding experience varies from organization to organization, certain companies during onboarding acclimatize the candidates to the work location rather than the workspace during the first day of joining.

When we asked about the importance of whether a good attitude or a perfect skill is important in recruiting a candidate, his opinion was when you are a large organization that has been in the industry for 30 plus years, where the organization’s talent management system has been established all you need is to focus is on getting the right attitude and a culture fit person. But when you are a mid-level growing organization, you need to focus on the skills rather than the culture fit, since the growth of the organization is the first thing you must focus on. So it is a slightly delicate task to be worked on, since both a skilled and a culture fit employee would be an ideal candidate that everyone looks for and many of the organizations have a long way ahead.

The problems related to recruitment back in 2017 and 2018 were how to manage huge candidate data, how to interact with the students hassle-free, and the prevalence of ATS’s were not that much during those years, based on those gaps the solutions that we have now are built around those problems, but in 2022 the new set of pain points that needs focus are the incompetent salary and absurd drop off rates. Also, the malpractices that happen during the recruitment process are in the initial process of rectification and we still have a long road ahead. The metrics in the drop-off ratio were a bit off the charts during the covid times which saw a hike of about 40 to 45% but in the present situation, it has reduced to around 20 to 25% with a roughly 70% joining rate irrespective of the organization.

The final, most important but often overlooked avenue in campus recruitment and mass recruiting is employer branding, building a good company profile either on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, or any other place where you get viewed as a credible company goes a long way in making your recruitment more effective. He also was of the very strong opinion that in the present situation, with the ongoing virtual recruitment paradigm shift, candidates tend to look into the organization to get an idea of what is in store for them before taking the next step.

Concludingly, the most important points to be taken into consideration for making recruitment an effective process is the employer branding, personalized onboarding experience, and competitive salary packages.