Recruitments : Retro Review

Recruitment business, in the earlier years, concentrated to get the client contracts by quoting less processing fee per candidate.  By investing minimum amount on the infrastructure and resources the company would make huge margins.

The recruiters were provided training initially to speak in foreign accent, to negotiate and convince the candidates. They were also given pseudo names to woo the global candidates. This technique was implemented by many recruiting firms like BPO’s to create the feeling of nativity for the clients as well as candidates.

I would like to share an incident happened with me. A foreign candidate complained against me to our CEO. He stated that I had heavy accent and the voice message was not clear. Also warned our CEO that “if you employ the people like me”  then the company would be out of business very soon.

Strange thing is that if the voice message was not clear and understandable, then how he was able to trace the company’s name and CEO phone number ? This incident clearly shows that a sudden change is not acceptable by everyone,  when it effects them directly or indirectly.

The demand of outsourcing  gave opportunity for the recruiters to change jobs frequently in search of big money. The staffing companies also tried to attract the recruiters by offering the incentive packages and bonus per each hire.

The recruiters had job portals and references initially to fill the requisitions.  There are many job portals available basing on the skills required. Later the staffing companies hired the candidates on their rolls and place them on contract or full time positions at clients.

Now a days the outsourcing is in full swing with various social network media’s applicant tracking tools coming in rescue of the recruiters helping them in closing the positions with effective and efficient people.

Would talk more about the recruiting life cycle and tools used for recruiting in our next article.

Sushma Namburi

HR : Journey from a Cost-Centre to Value-Centre

Overtime, as business in general embraced the concept of outsourcing, to reduce overhead cost and improve Company’s competitive advantage in the labour market  ; many companies started to use outsourcing in the area of HR along with the traditional functions like Payroll and Benefits.

IT companies were the first to outsource their staffing needs to third parties. The basic philosophy of those companies is to concentrate on what they do best – the core competencies that are key to attract and retain customers. Everything else for them – is a non-core competency and should be procured for the best value.

Outsourcing has raised the bar for the growth of third parties or staffing companies to cater the hiring need of those companies in various verticals. RPO gained favour among HRM.

With the advent of the conventional methods, the recruitment has become an industry in itself, based on the goal of providing a candidate to a client for a price. These days the default position is to outsource.

Companies have come up with general, extra ordinary and niche skills pool of candidates targeting specific companies hiring needs. In today’s world staffing companies are benchmarking higher goals by exploring new horizons.

Over the ages HR was treated as a cost centre  adding up cost to the organisation. The trend changed now a days, HR is treated as value centre as it manages both human resources and capital received on them. HCM (Human Capital Management) stands appropriate as the HR department also started generating revenue to the company.

~Sushma Namburi