An overview of recruitment strategies.

It's a well known fact that in todays indian software industry, the gap between the demand and supply for a good resource is hugely wide. In this scenario, companies use a variety of channels and strategies to grab the best. It's good to understand these channels.

Internal Referal Programs
Existing employees refer their friends and relatives for a vacant position. If the referred candidate gets recruited, the employee gets rewarded with a decent amount of money. This is the most prefered option employed by any company because the employee would have already done a unbiased briefing about the position and the company. And this is also the cheapest recruitment channel.

Placement Firms
Companies circulate the vacant positions list to a number of affiliated placement agencies. These placement firms in-turn hunt for the resources(mainly via job sites) and send the profiles to the company. If the candidate gets selected and joins the company, then the placement firm gets paid anywhere between 8.33% to 12% of the employee's CTC. This is the costliest recruitment channel for a company. The chances of candidate joining the company is also on the lower side because a candidate out in the market looking for a job would have got atleast a couple offers and he would choose a offer that suits him best.

Walk-Ins
Companies publish vacant positions in well established dailies and conduct walk-in interviews. Though the cost of the advertisements and interview conduction are really expensive, for companies with a larger number of vacancies, it works out very cheap. Few companies keep advertising, just for branding gimmics(they may or may not have the listed vacancies). Branding advertisements are mainly published by those who got merged, those that got rebranded,those that are going to be listed in stock market,etc.

Job Fairs
This is one of the great tamasha peculiar to indian job market. You have to visit one to understand how badly is our education system is in. Thousands of candidates, thousands of vacant positions but not even a handful of right-fits. I represented my company recruitment panel in a job fair. There were 138 vacant positions at Project Lead and below positions, we had a target of grabing atleast 50 people. We received 4500 resumes,interviewed 1200 people, 100 made to the second round, 40 of them were offered jobs with best pay scales, 22 of them joined.

Company website
All sensible companies instantly publish all vacant postions over the net. It's the most cheapest hiring option. People directly submit their resumes in the campanies websites. Companies also attract people to their websites through advertisements in various mass media channels like internet,billboards,television,radio,etc

Job sites
In all the above mentioned strategies, the candidates go hunting but in job-sites, the companies and the placement firms come there to look out for resources. Job sites charge for accessing the profile database.


In a thriving indian software market, from middlemen to job-sites seems to be minting money. So understand the nitty-gritties and position yourself for best oppurtunities. It will be an irony, if competent people like you, dont get your share!!!.

Happy Job Hunting!!!