The Hindu Business Line : Whose job is it anyway?

Everything about the recruitment process has changed over the past eight-ten years. Today a company releases ads not so much to hire people as to be ‘seen’ as a ‘good employer.’

Employer brand, the differentiating factor for prospective employees.

Anjali Prayag

A couple of decades ago, the recruitment process was simple: the company released an advertisement that elicited maybe about two dozen responses from which the line manager shortlisted and interviewed candidates, and got the administration to release offer letters. The candidates, overwhelmed at being the ‘chosen ones’, did not question the terms of employment. Everything was hunky dory till the next guy retired.

In the last eight-ten years, everything about the recruitment process has turned topsy-turvy. The company releases ads not so much for actual hiring but more to be ‘seen’ as a ‘good employer’ by candidates.

Having outsourced the hiring process to a consultant, it’s not often that companies and recruitment firms partner to build the company brand among prospective employees.

Candidates have to be wooed as they invariably come with three-four offer letters in hand and want one more for the comparison exercise.

Employer brand vital

The important question is which job will the candidate pick? What is it that the employee looks for when he/she chooses one company rather than the other?

“The vital something that every employee looks for is the employer brand,” according to Ravi B.S, Head, Talent Engagement, Commercial Health Business, Satyam Computer Services Ltd. He was speaking at a panel discussion on Employer Branding - Recruiters’ Role and Responsibility, organised by the Executive Recruiters’ Association in Chennai last week.

There are many reasons why a prospective employee chooses an employer: money, job role, designation, and most importantly, company image. But who creates this brand among future employees? That was a subject that was extensively debated at the conference.

Most recruitment companies, Ravi felt, tended to sell the job rather than the company for which they were recruiting. “Recruiters and companies have to work together to arrive at a job description and a strategy for selling the company,” which, in turn, could lead to better candidate fit. Therefore, the onus of building a company’s brand among potential hires was both on the company and the recruitment firm it has chosen.

The role of recruiters has been forcibly changed because they are fighting for the same group of candidates for more than one company. Moreover, candidates are not easily accessible.

R. U. Srinivas, Chief Operating Officer, Caliber Point Business Solutions Ltd, suggested that recruitment firms should match the employer brand value proposition with employee expectations in terms of empowerment, peer envy, career path offered, learning opportunities available, challenges and work-life balance. “Market the job like a product. Talk about company positioning, product positioning, benefit positioning, work positioning, skill positioning and competition positioning.”

But recruiters have to be educated about the job and the company before they hunt for the candidate. “Unfortunately, it does not work that way because they (HR managers in companies) don’t always have the time and have to fill the position in 24 hours,” according to M. R. Shantaram, Vice-Chairman, Executive Recruiters’ Association.

Hiring to meet contingencies

And because the top HR official is often busy with other things, recruitment mandates are made at the junior level, i.e., by people with under 20 months of experience, who tend to over-design the requirements and give the requirement to about 20 placement firms.

“Most of the hiring is happening on a contingency basis which gives little time for employer branding,” says Shantaram. He suggests that companies should empanel three-four recruiters with proven delivery capability, who could scale up to meet any contingency. The conference threw up a number of ideas on how to attract the attention of a candidate who was constantly chased by headhunters.

While Ravi of Satyam Computer Services felt that companies need to promote themselves aggressively (“shout from the rooftops” ), Usha Pillai, COO, Utopia BPO Pvt Ltd, felt the branding should be subtle.

“Sometimes, candidates leave for the strangest of reasons like not being given a particular brand of beverage on night shifts. Obviously, we can’t tell the next candidate that we will give them their preferred brand of beverage,” she said.

Tracing the evolution of the employer branding exercise, Ravishankar B, Global Head, Resource Management Group, HCL Technologies Ltd, said in the eighties it was the ‘popularity’ of the company that mattered to candidates, in the 1990s it was the safety and the security that the company offered, and post-liberalisation was marked by the CTC era.

Social media, the new option

“But now it’s the power of the social media that’s overtaking everything else,” he says. He talked of how social networking sites have become the new shopping malls for talent. At HCL, for instance, nearly seven per cent of the hiring happened through LinkedIn or Facebook.

“The power of the brand in the social media is important to new generation kids who spend about one-fifth of their lives online. So, how do I appeal to the new generation?”

However, blogging as a medium for employer branding may only appeal to a section of recruiters, said Ravi of Satyam. Shantaram of ERA agreed, “This would appeal to the under-25 age group but I guess the corporate sector is not yet ready for this.”

More Stories on : Human Resources | Brands | People@work

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