#77: Shruthi Bopaiah shares mass recruitment challenges and best practices and, tips for interviewers

On this episode of The Shape of work podcast, our guest is Shruthi Bopaiah, Head of Client Engagement and Communications at Bridgeweave Ltd. 

With over seventeen years of experience working in the HR fraternity, Shruthi had plenty of expertise to share in this conversation. She discusses with us:

• Her journey from doing a Bachelor’s in Tourism to HR, Corporate communications and AI now
• Mass hiring: challenges and best practices
• Tips for improving communication between managers and remote employees
• Proven ways to make your candidates feel comfortable during an interview
• Creating a world-class employer branding strategy

Deciding a career path:

Sport is an important part of Shruthi’s life. She has been a part of several sports events, and she connects her career with a quote by an ice hockey coach:

“100% of the shots that you don’t take are 100% of the shots that will never go in.”

If one never tries new paths of careers, they will never understand if they can do it. Shruthi never hesitates to take up a new task. She feels that the reason behind it is her not being afraid to accept failures.

How to make interviews more conversational?

The recruiters should focus on making the conversation easy for the candidates. They can talk about their own experiences in hiring. Candidates are bound to get nervous during the interview. The recruiters should focus on making them comfortable. They should also be prepared before the interview to avoid unnecessary wastage of their and the candidates’ time.

Shruthi talks about making an interview a ‘conversation of equals.’

The First Follower principle:

Shruthi has worked on some unique projects. She feels it is the power of connections that helped her land on such tasks. She talks about handling the production of “Punyakoti” (2020), an animated Sanskrit movie. The main objective of it was to explain the significance of encouraging a person to pursue their passion. She is a strong proponent of the First Follower principle that explains how the first person to follow the leader is the most powerful. It takes guts to support a new trend.

An idea cannot be pursued if one does not have their first follower. Shruthi believes that she belongs to this role and is always trying to discover such trends. 

Creating a successful employer brand:

Shruthi feels that a successful employer brand is equivalent to reputation management. It can be done in 2 ways:

1. Hiring PR and sending information through the press can make things look good on the outside.
2. Good reputation management: Creating a reputation from the eyes of the employee. If the organization truly believes in the true satisfaction of employees, they would keep them in the center while making any decisions. An employee’s word can make a great impact on the entire reputation of the company.

The employees should be able to discuss their career paths and policies. They should be able to raise their voice against something they disagree with. It is how the reputation of a company is built automatically.

Follow Shruthi on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Yashwanth Jembige

BONUS: Interested to know more about advanced recruitment? Get the answers to all your questions in our recent article: The role of data and tech advancements in ensuring hiring success.