7 confessions from recruiters for year 2015

7 CONFESSIONS FROM RECRUITERS FOR YEAR 2015 December 16, 2015 Mukul Agarwal

2015 has seen a rise in number of hirings across India, and specially among the start-ups. As we are nearing the end of this year, we reached out to recruiters of various companies (both Corporate Organisations as well as Recruitment Agencies) and asked them to make a confession about their work in this industry.

Here is a collection of most commonly told statements.

1. Less time to read Resumes Recruiters have received plenty of applications, but they were able to give only 5-7 seconds of time on each resume.

Nearly 83% of recruiters revealed that cover letters went unnoticed. Moreover, candidates need to take extra care because if there are spelling mistakes in the resumes, recruiters tend to reject it instantly.

2. Candidate Personal Details Recruiters have given emphasis on the email ids of the candidates as well. If it was not professional, 75% recruiters have rejected candidates for the job. For a single job position, recruiters have received nearly 250 applications and this number kept increasing rapidly. Having a photograph on resume has been a big no from recruiter’s perspective during 2015.

3. Do not jump on References Almost every company need references by the candidates from their previous organisation. Going against the ethics of recruitment, recruiters have called the bosses of the referred company even when they have not shortlisted the candidates. Recruitment agencies have even gone to the extent of asking the company if they have other positions to fill. As an advice, candidates should not get obliged to provide references immediately. Wait till the offer is made.

4. Keep Social Media Clean

Nearly 70% of the recruiters have agreed to visit candidates social media profiles on various networking sites. In the year 2015, nearly 90% of the companies used social media for recruiting and this number is expected to rise in the near future. Recruiters have rejected nearly 40% of the candidates, as they found something about the employee in the social media site.

5. Freshers are going directly to Recruitment Agencies During 2015, fresh graduates who were looking to make a career in Recruitment & HR, have preferred applying into recruitment companies over corporate organisations. The reasons being, recruiting agencies offered decent starting salary, big bonuses and fast progressions. The competition for the posts was so high that the recruiting companies were getting first application within 3 minutes of posting the job offer.

6. Contract roles on the promise of Full-time job Year 2015 has seen reluctance from companies to offer full time salaried position to employees. They have asked recruitment agencies to find candidates who were willing to work on hourly or daily rate. While these recruiters knew that majority of candidates look for full-time role over part-time work, but they have still sent candidates on the recruiting company payroll with an unsure promise of converting it into permanent role. Sometimes the situations have gone wayward when client organisation do not agree to pay the rates matching the expected salary of the candidate.

7. Candidates have given the leads unknowingly Recruitment agencies are always on the lookout of more and more clients. For this, recruiters were trained to ask the candidates “Have you attended any interview before?� This question didn’t cause any harm to candidates. However, once candidates said that they have recently attended an interview in some company, recruiters have confessed to call the company and pitch for recruitment services.

Applicant Tracking System would also like to end this year by making a confession as well. Till now we have served over 8000+ organisations across India who have created 18000+ openings to manage and track 6+ lakh profiles. Till now 50+ recruitment agencies have received business from alteast one client through Business Leads feature.