The Shape of Work

#50: Aadil Bandukwala on recruitment analytics, outbound hiring, candidate journey maps, and empathy

Springworks Season 1 Episode 50

On this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, we hosted Aadil Bandukwala, ranked among  ‘India’s Top 20 Most Influential People in Human Resources’. In addition to being the Senior Director of Marketing at HackerRank, Aadil is the author of 'Outbound Hiring: How Innovative Companies are Winning the Global War for Talent.'

Aadil goes beyond traditional recruiting concepts to craft narratives that reshape the candidate’s journey. Having worked as a Talent Acquisition Advisor for years, he talks about evangelizing talent by bringing stories from his experiences.

We picked his brain to know about the role of analytics in recruitment, and other significant concepts in hiring such as inbound and outbound hiring, zero waste recruitment, building candidate journey maps, and the power of empathy.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

How to ensure the success of a hiring process?

Aadil takes us through methods of hiring- inbound and outbound. Inbound hiring is the process of posting jobs and then waiting for people to apply. According to him, this process turns out to be a failure. A company might receive plenty of leads, but they will churn out eventually. Instead, as Aadil mentions, companies should go for an outbound hiring process. They should find out the leads and approach them. It is a targeted approach where personalized talent acquisition and business efforts merge to hire people who will succeed in a company.

This process is similar to the method of outbound sales. In order to achieve good results:
Companies need to treat candidates like customers. They need to ensure a good candidate experience for them.
Recruiting should be aligned with the nuances of the business. More often, the HR team does not align with the views of the business team. Their version of the candidate and feedback is very different from each other.

Building a candidate journey map for a better candidate experience:

Aadil explains how the Sales and Marketing team of a company curates the ideal experience for a customer. New product managers build a user journey when they startup. It helps them understand problems the customers might face with the products with the customers and its solution. However, one cannot find such an attempt made for the candidates.
It is necessary to help recruiters help go through the candidate journey. They need to understand the entire emotional journey of the candidates.

Tips on employer branding and employee experience to startups:

Candidate experience is not a one-time activity. It needs to be effective in every step of the hiring and the post-hiring process. The problem arises when the candidates switch jobs within a few months. Thus the company must figure out ways to retain them. They need to be delighted in every step of their career journey. It is also about relaying the brand story, the technical statistics, stories of your employees, etc., to the customers. The candidate needs to know the benefits and growth they can receive by applying to this company. Lack of this clarity leads to an increase in job switching.

Follow Aadil 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.