Ingenious methods of sourcing candidates

hi,
i am shruti, doing a summer project in recruitment in a software firm in banglore.i am doin acomparitive study on the recruitment process, strategy, potential source of candidates etc among 10 top IT firms.
now my question is, while preparing the questionnaire,wht are the relevent questions
can u tell me some ingenious methods of sourcing candidates apart from employee referrals, newspaper ads, and job portals
what is an application tracking system?how does it work?what are the popular ones? this is a fabulous site.plz help me out

Hi Shruti,
I am also a student of and I will be joining Honeywell from 26th of may for my summer training. The topic of my project is also recruitment. So I think you can be of great help to me. Hope you will.

Assir

hi Assir,
nice to meet u. by any chance are u in banglore.plz lemme knw whtz ur project profile, iam coducting a survey among 10 IT firms in bangalore on their recruitment techniques. i am ready to share info, if u r too. i am from XIME banglore, where r u from? do reply
regards,
sruthy.

Nice to see your reply.
I am student of MBA from PUNE University in MIT School Of Managment, Pune. My exams are going on and will end on 24th of May. After that I will be joining Honeywell company, which is in pune itself. My project there will be to check out their whole recruitment process and find out any loopholes in that. I will also have to find some better way of rec. process for them to overcome the drawbacks of present system, if any. I will have to go through rec. processes of many more companies also to find out the comparison. I hope you will help me and the same you can expect from me, But after 26th of May. B'coz of my exams.
Assir

hi shruti and assir,

firstly all the best for the project.
am an MBA hr too...almost finished my summer project

as far as i can help u,
sourcing can be done through emp referrals, job portals, ads as u said; can also do it through consultants ,campus recruitment, job fairs etc.

I worked on a project in recruitment in MPHASIS last december.From what i learnt, first chalk out the recruitment strategy already being followed, then consider improving it,,u may use the survey to make improvements.
also consider the cost, ROI etc involved in existing methods and proposed methods.

am not really sure as to what exactly u want.Hope this helps you.

regards,
shweta challa

Hi Shruti

To mu mind the relevent questions would revolve around the following themes
1. Sourcing methods, rating them in order of preference, reasons for the ratins, pros-cons, comparision in terms of ROI, Quality etc
2. Screening and Selection methods i.e resume screening, test etc comparisions
3. conversion rates from each sourcing method, offer acceptance rate
other questions could be
Q what is the average time of response to each candidate
Q Are rejected candidates informed by mail/phone/not informed
Q What are the jobsites from which you source resumes. Why from them? Which is better than the other and in what criteria?
Q Do you have a referral policy in your organisation? If yes how does it work? Is there a reward fro referring employees?
Q How many open position you have currently in your organisation? How many more will be created? Do you have a recruitment pool database?
Q Do you have a candidate tracking software? IF yes how doeas it operate?
Q How many rounds of interviews, test before a candidate is offered?
Q Do you take candidate feedbback on recruitment process?

These are a possible list of questions (in a raw form) that you can include in the questinnaire. Ideally you should have a combination of closed ended and open ended questions. If possible do a couple of interviews with hiring managers to understand the recruitment process in sample companies and any issues, things you may find form these interviews can be included from these interviews.
Some other conventional and Non conventional sourcing methods include
1. Career Fairs and Job fairs
2. Inter College Events
3. Media- blogs (the next gen recruitment), radio advert, internet advert (on sites other than job sites),Billboards, magazines, newsletters, mailing groups, Theater hall, Public Bathrooms (Yes! Dont pull your nose at that. Ikea- The Swedish Furniture giant does that. Read more at http://www.workforce.com/section/06/.../23/51/81.html)[/url]
4. Corporate Career sites
5. Internal recruitment
6. Temporary/party time agencies
7. Headhunters/Consultancies
8. Cold Calling.
9. Institutes Alumni Databases
10.Campus recruitment/Lateral Campus Recruitment
11. Employment Exhanges (Yes. People register there!)

Application Tracking System is an intranet application tool which tracks an applicant/hire/candidates hiring status. The candidates profile is added as soon as his resume is recieved and subsequesntly his hiring info is updated at each stage. It has many advantages, namely
1. A candidate's record is not lost
2. Anybody requiring the information and having the permission can view the status of any applicant
3. MIS generation is easy. You can generate reports, lists etc easily
4. Paper work is eliminated
There are many aplicant softwares but the mosty popular one is Peoplesoft although it is a complete HR Software and not only a recruitment one specifically.

hi manmeet,
i really appreciate ur help,this really helps me alot.i discoverd tz site by accident,bt tz is really a fab site.hope u will help me wz my doubts.as i told u my project is on new trends in recruitment, i will send u a sample questinnaire,can u plz go thru it, ang givme ur suggestions. looking forward to ur suppport in future
regards,
sruthy

hi shweta,
hey, i am also doin my summers in mphasis bfl bangalore, by any chance do u knw sme one called swagata basu frm TAPMI. coz my guide told me, 2ppl had done a related project earlier. my project is new treends in recruitment, i dont have to do a cost analysis. the idea is to know abot various methods of sourcing candidates by firms acroos the industry, then to compare and bench mark. hope u will provide necessary guidence. thnx for replyn. it means alot
regards,
shruti

Hello Shweta,
Thanks a lot for showing interest in our project. Of-course you can be of great help to us for completing our project successfully. It great that you have done your project in MPHASIS. I will be in your contact but let me first finish with my exams. By then can we know more about your place, college and present project.

Regards
Assir

Hello Manmeet,
Thank you for your help. These questions and suggestions will be really helpful for my project. If I am not wrong, you are from pune itself. I have not gone through them properly and that site also but I will check them out after 24th. I will surely contact you for some help.

Regards
Assir