Freshers hiring is indeed tricky but on-campus hiring is the most successful sourcing channel for tech talent.
In a recent report published by Mercer Mettl titled ‘Tech Hiring & Technology Adoption Trends 2019‘, it has been revealed that on-campus placements constitute the most successful sourcing channel for companies scouting for tech talent.
With technology getting involved more in the recruitment and hiring process by the day, the success rate of each sourcing channel is vital for the company. Despite the availability of numerous sourcing channels, 42% of the companies involved in tech recruitment admitted to finding it difficult to source the desired quality tech candidates. Hence, the quality of the sourcing channel proves to be vital for such companies. And the quality of such channels is judged on the basis of their success rate.
Rapid digital transformation across domains has resulted in a steep rise in the demand for quality technology professionals the world over. However, as everybody is onboarding the automation bandwagon, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain quality tech talent. This is mostly on account of inadequate knowledge regarding tech-driven best practices and widening demand- supply gap,” Mercer Mettl CEO Siddhartha Gupta said.
Out of all the sourcing channels mentioned in the report, the Campus hiring of freshers represents the highest success rate at 67%. Other sourcing channels with high success rates include active reach out to passive candidates at 62%, social hiring at 61% and company career page at 61%.
What makes it interesting is the fact that despite having the highest success rate, campus hiring isn’t the most popular sourcing channel out there. The campus hiring accounted for only 12% of all the channels tech recruiters use to source candidates. In comparison to this, 23% of the organisations use Employee referrals as their sourcing channel. Other popular sourcing channels include job portals and forums at 22% and social hiring at 18%.
So what makes these on-campus freshers hiring this effective?
The answer to this lies in a couple of factors. The first of them being the fact that the companies are able to nurture talented individuals right from the beginning of their careers. This allows them to control their development in a way suited to the company. Another benefit is the controlled attrition rate. Hence the hired fresh individuals perform better, resulting in a higher success rate.
Hiring Trends: Skills Over Academic Qualification
The criteria taken into consideration while hiring individuals differs from organisation to organisation. 20% of the organisations evaluate an individual on the basis of their proficiency in the required tech skill. Other popular criteria used by individuals include cognitive and learning ability at 18% and applicability of previous work experience at 17%. Contrary to popular beliefs, only 9% of organisations take academic backgrounds into consideration.
The above figures clearly indicate the fast-changing equations in the evaluation of tech talent in the industry. Companies are prioritising their hiring process on the basis of skills rather than educational backgrounds.
The trend, however, depends on the type of company that is doing the recruiting. For examples, the companies where tech forms the core of their product, 10% of them evaluate on the basis of academic backgrounds. On the other hand, in companies where tech has little influence over the product of the company, evaluation on the basis of academic backgrounds is done at 13%.
Therefore, even the criteria are subject to change on the basis of the kind of personnel required for a specific type of organisation.
