Cost per telephone call – Rs.1825/-

The other day, I had a vacancy for .net programmer, as usual I went to a Job site, Searched for the keywords, filtered it further and got 15 resume which I found good. It took me couple of hours through this process.

I decided to call these 15 candidates to see if they are interested in the position.

This is the result of the telephone calls

Ø 5 numbers not in use
Ø 3 persons did not pick up the phone for the 10th time
Ø 2 profiles did not match the requirement – in fact they had put wrong info in their resume
Ø 4 people yelled at me – how many times will you call me
Ø 1 person was INTERESTED!

When I checked up my old excels, I found that I have in-fact called the 4 candidates who yelled at me. Though I am fuming being yelled at, I accept the fact that it will be as irritating receiving unsolicited calls as it was for me.

I started calculating the cost spent through out this exercise…
2 hour for Search
3 hours for Calling these candidates
2 hour preparation time etc
My entire day!

Now my salary is 15000/- a month & I work 20 days a month
That is Rs.750 per day
Over heads for my workstation, EB, welfare etc adds to another Rs.1000
The telephone cost – Rs.75/-
Well it actually cost me Rs.1825/-
That is Rs. 250 approximately per call which went through
& Rs.1825 is the cost of reaching out to one Candidate.

This is the cost of my telephone call friends! A recruitment call isn’t just the amount we pay to our telephone service. It is much more. The worst of all is that by calling a Candidate many times, our image and the Companies value will be down.

Even if I had, say 5 people through out the day, with an average of 1:50 getting placed with my client, the recruiting cost seems to be Rs. 18250/- + job site subscription + management cost + etc + etc almost amounting to Rs. 25000/-

Don’t believe me… just ask your boss (if you are in a small consulting firm) the total expense & the total number of candidates placed last year. Divide the Expense by number of Candidate placed – You will know the cost per hire.

Source Chaos

It all went pretty smooth. We posted the Jobs in Jobsites, put it up for Employee Referral & hired couple of consultants too. The position was critical & we wanted to have the best of Candidates.

We interviewed 10 Candidates, shortlisted 2 & had sent out an offer to the best of Candidates. The Candidate, Rajesh, had just finished the Joining formality & I have introduced him to his Peers, Boss & Subordinates.

I was sure my boss is going to be happy. May be this will also reflect in my appraisal.

Just then, the phone rang…

It was from one of the Consultants we had hired for the assignment.

I said, “Hi, how are you…”

“Great, came the reply… and has Rajesh joined today. We just wanted to raise the bill for him”
I got confused; I thought we had received the application directly from Rajesh through some job site.

I said, “Hey, I thought I had received the application from a Job site”

The consultant said, “We have forwarded the resume to you 15 days back. In fact I also have your acknowledgement for the same”

I said, “Okay, let me check up” & hung up

After going through my email records, I found that I have received the Resume from both the consultant and through the Job site. I had forwarded the resume from Job site to the department people. But the resume from the Consultant had come in earlier.

I decided to talk to my Boss and give the Credit to the Consultant.

When I started to go meet my Boss, another call came in…

“Hi, this is Aditya from IT department. Rajesh has joined today & seemed really happy with the Job offer. In fact he is here with me & promised a treat today for referring him to our Company. By the way, when will you credit my Employee Referral account for him?”

There goes my perfect Day…

PS: This is an imaginative story. But I am sure you would have experienced a similar situation in your company as well.

- Maintaining a Duplicate free Resume Database helps you a lot.

The Head Hunting Story

We decided to hire a Technical Manager. This was a critical position & we did not want to take any chances. So we decided that money should not be a factor. We decided to give a Newspaper advertisement, publish the Jobs in Job boards, and allocate the assignment to Talent Search Partners.

We received 100’s of resume. After a pain staking shortlisting process, we identified 5 people who were promising. We had a telephonic & called them for Interview.

After the interview, we were buoyant that we identified the ideal fit for the position. It has cost us dearly and took almost 45 days going through the process. But still, we were all happy of the outcome. We had the ideal Candidate for the position who will fit into the position exactly.

I called him up to discuss the offer & make him comfortable with our Company & its policies. After going through the entire formality – I said, “You know, we have spent $30000/- to find you. Our company stops at nothing to get the right Candidate”. Our next Technical Manager was impressed.

But what he told me stunned me, “All you had to do is go through your email box couple of months back. I had applied for a vacancy with the company”

PS: This is an imaginative story. But I am sure you will understand the underlying fact behind the story.

- Maintaining a Searchable Resume database will surely help you recruit faster & cheaper!

Thanks for your time folks, the story is over… go back to sleep, psst, I am sorry… go back to work!

Forget Passive Candidates... get Smart Candidates instead!

Passive Candidates are not looking for Jobs. They are happy in the existing company. It is not because of salary (which they will never be satisfied with). It is more because of the culture, the responsibility, the challenge & their ability to deliver in a particular company that make them not look out for Jobs.

Are we right going behind them? Will they actually gel into your company ecosystem?

Smart candidates out there are open to Jobs offers. But they are not into Job hunting. They are not distributing their resume across. They are not going to Job sites searching for Jobs and they may not submit their resume in common places.

But they have made their profile available through Social media. They have subscribed to Job feeds; they know that those who are keen to recruit them will prefer reaching out to them. These candidates are most smart & will surely be productive.

How can you reach out to these smart candidates who are tech savvy, socially active online & available?

The answer – through Web 2.0

Reach out to them through Web 2.0 Job marketing. Have your Jobs available for them in their Social Network, book marks, personal pages and other places they visit. Let them know about your Jobs at their place of comfort. If they feel they fit in to your requirement & the position will enhance their Career prospect, they will make available their Candidature.