CHALLENGES CORPORATES FACE IN CAMPUS HIRING

“Recruiting should be viewed as a business partner, someone who is critical to the success of the business.”

Harvard Business Review suggests that 72% of the millennials hear about companies from their friends, 68% through a job portal, and 45% on campus.

Fresher’s bring fresh ideas and energy into the corporates and are always considered strategically important in entire Capability building exercise by any CHRO.

Campus Hiring is a seasonal affair for each corporates and big-small corporates have their set of challenges around the same.

Large organisations like Mahindra and Mahindra, Facebook, Airtel, Amazon etc have their dedicated campus team while companies like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC Life, Infosys, Accenture runs multiple programs around driving talent from campus.

 Basically, a company is divided into two minds-  the company has to make sure that the branding of the company is being done and on the other hand it is a whole challenge to properly screen and interview each candidate that comes through, to fill in their talent pipeline.

The employers get busy at times and miss out on some of the best talents due to sheer volume limitations and due to the traditional recruitment process which comes with time boundation. Campus hiring has to be done within tight timelines and the other challenge is the wide geography from where we have to hire.

The major challenges faced by Corporates while campus hiring are –

1. Limited manpower and time – Campus hiring is done manually and over a short period of time, which makes it difficult for companies to thoroughly assess and interview all of the candidates.

2. Finite Resources–Companies may not have the resources to conduct an extensive on-campus recruiting efforts, which can limit their ability to attract and hire top talent.

3. Availability of the hiring managers (due to tight working schedules) is another major problem for the HRs to manage the drives.

4. Availability of slots from campuses: To get slots inside the campus is a major problem and hence in a lot of cases, HR prefers a Preplacement offer to the summer interns vs the fresh hires. Summer interns also being associated with the company start understanding the company culture and values much earlier.

5. Limited Information – Companies may not have access to a lot of information about candidates beyond their resumes and transcripts, which can make it difficult to accurately assess their fit for the company and the role.

6. Changing needs – The needs of a company can change rapidly as it is a dynamic business environment and campus hiring may not always align with the company’s current needs or priorities.

7. Quality Talent – Nowadays, college students lack knowledge & relevant work experience, which Can make it difficult for companies to assess their potential and fit for the role.

8. Tight budget- With employees spending most of the time recruiting on campus, the cost of travel and lost productivity can hit the business hard without the budget strategy.

9. Frequent change of people: Frequent changes in their campus hiring team and also the changes of the SPOCs within the universities / colleges always results in loss of data and relationship built over year.

10. Student perception/ misperception – 72% millennials hear about the companies from their friends and get highly influenced/biased by their peers who tend to outsmart them and think of their opinion superior as compared to others which is wrong at times and results in early attrition.

One need to seriously consider technology as their partner to have solution to highly operational process with so many stakeholders involved in the process.

SkillsConnect.in is one such platform which has built a platform with colleges on one side and corporates on the other. The complete campus hiring can be seamlessly managed from the platform and makes campus hiring a experience.