The recruitment is the process of locating encouraging potential application to apply for existing or anticipated job opening. It is actually a linking function, joining together those with jobs to till and those seeking jobs. Recruitment, logically, aims at (1) attracting a large number of qualified applicants who are ready to take up the job if it’s offered and (2) offering enough information for unqualified person to self – select themselves out.
Campus Recruitment:
It is a method of recruitment by visiting and participation in college campuses and their placement centres. Here the recruitment visit reputed educational institutions such as IITs, IIMs, colleges and universities with a view to pick up job aspirants having requisite technical or professional skills. Job seekers are provided information about the jobs, and the recruiter, in turn; get a snapshot of job seekers through constant interchange of information with respective institutions. A screening is done within the campus and the short listed students are then subjected to remainder of the selection process. In view of the growing demand for young manager, most reputed organisation ( such as Hindustan Lever Ltd, Proctor and Gamble, Citibank, State Bank of India, Tata and Birla Group Companies) visit IIMs, and IITs regularly and even sponsor certain popular campus activity with a view to earn goodwill in the job market. Advantage of this method include: the placement centre helps locate applicants and provides resumes to organisation; applicants can be pre-screened; applicants will not have to be lured away from a current job and lower salary expectations. On the negative front, campus recruitment means hiring people with little or no work experience. The organisation will have to offer some kind of training to the applicants, almost immediately after hiring. It demands careful advance planning, looking into the ‘placement week’ of various institutions in different parts of the country. Further, campus recruiting can be costly for organisation situated in another city (airfare, boarding and loading expenses of recruiters, site visit of applicants if allowed, etc.).
Guidelines for Campus Recruitment
- Shortlist campus: The campus whose curricula and specialisation match the needs of a company are short listed in advance. Asian Paints, for instance, evaluation the education standards of all leading B-Schools, including the quality of classroom education, the strengths of faculty, and the depth of support system like libraries, computerised referencing etal. It also scans the entrance tests of these schools to find whether the admitted students are intellectually superior. The schools that fit its stringent standard are on its list every year.
- Choose recruiting team carefully: The recruiting team should consist of senior executive, heaving a through knowledge of company and the job. The compotation of team generally shows how seriously the management takes campus recruitment. To create a favourable impression, for example, HCL Technologies Ltd CEO Shiv Nadar addresses the students himself. Alumni from B-School from which the firm wants to hire people could also be used to get a positive response.
- Pay smartly, not highly: Since compensation is not the most important factor at the beginning of one’s career, the recruiting firm should focus attention on a compensation package that is competitive and in line with industry practise. For example, there is one thing all prospective Honeywell Technology Solutions Lab (HTSL) employees in Bangalore are told clearly while they are being interviewed; the company is not trying to match the best salaries in the industry. But then the company has something that other companies can’t offer. New recruits find the recognition system, the work culture and the learning opportunities a big attraction.
- Present a clear image: Companies such as Procter and Gamble, Nestle present a clear image of how they help the new recruiter build a promising career within short span time “come, grow with us” is the theme that they sell to prospective candidates who are in search in interesting, challenging work assignments. (Rather then assignments cushioned with rewards and benefits).
- Do not oversell yourself: These are no point in overselling the idea of a learning environment or a best pay master etc. through inflated claims. Instead, facts must be presented in a frank way, throwing light on how performance gets rewarded and competencies are nurtured carefully.
- Get in early: Leading companies try to identify their student as early as possible and build fruitful relationship with them through various way (like selecting summer trainee carefully, putting the trainees on live projects, assessing their ability early, offering job offer on the spots etc, as in the case of P&G). Offering scholarship, endowing chair sending managers as coaches to teach on campus are also being passionately pursed with a view to forge a bond with students.
- Not everyone fits the bill: To avoid disappointments as a later stage, the recruiting company should try to verify the career plans, aspiration and expectations of recruit elects and recheck everything objectively before extending the job offers.
Common Mistake made in Campus Recruitment
- Failure to utilise professional recruiter: Often recruitment is used as a training experience for new employees. This result in rapid turnover in the recruitment office.
- The recruiter is not well trained in interviewing: Professionally trained as used here mean a minimum training period of three days of principles and practices using live interview that are audio or videotaped and critiqued.
- The recruiter does not have the authority to make decision with regard to hiring: Often this is reserved for the boss, who does not know how to conduct an evaluation interview.
The actual plant visit is mishandled: Recruiters are left waiting for scheduling appointment, constant interruption occur during the visit, arrangements by the institute may not be upto the mark, prior short listing of students is not arranged.