Speed hiring catches fancy: 12 minutes and hired or fired

It's aimed at new-age sectors like e-commerce and other startups so that they can spend less time in their recruitment processes

Job street has just got into fast lane with a new concept called 'speed hiring', wherein suitable candidates are filtered out in flat 12 minutes!

Aimed to ensure that the companies in new-age sectors like e-commerce and other startups spend less time in their recruitment processes, the HR managers have evolved this new hiring tool that is finding favour with firms like Snapdeal, Ola Cabs, Quikr, Foodpanda, Practo and WNS.

Typically, 'speed hiring' involves candidates being tested for their cognitive abilities in just about 12 minutes and offer letters are given to the suitable candidates.

"In start-ups and new age businesses, life moves very fast and scenario changes every fortnight and therefore it is important to show the result to the investors. So, it may not be viable to invest half of the time in recruiting," executive search firm GlobalHunt MD Sunil Goel said.

The Cognitive Ability Speed Test (CAST), developed by assessment platform CoCubes Technologies, carries 50 objective type questions on English grammar, ratios, percentage and inductive reasoning to assess the cognitive abilities of the candidates.

CoCubes' Co-founder and CEO Harpreet Singh Grover said, "While CAST is definitely more popular among start-ups with large-scale hiring, larger established companies like WNS and Allianz Cornhill are also using it".

Saurabh Nigam, Vice President (HR) at e-commerce major Snapdeal, which used the CoCubes' platform said, "In the last six months of implementation, with over 22,000 assessments, CAST has shown correlation of 81 per cent with offer ratio and has helped to provide a seamless experience for the candidates".

'Speed hiring' is catching attention of many recruiters for whom 'time is money' in today's fast paced world, experts said.

"In-demand talent doesn't wait. Firms are beginning to realise that top performers lose interest if their hiring process is too slow and drawn out," said Puneet Rathi, Head - Advisory & Knowledge, SHRM India.

Omega Healthcare's vice president and HR Head HR Guruvayurappan PV said, "On an average, we hire over 600 employees every month to meet our business requirements. Employee referral contributes to 50 per cent to 55 per cent of our monthly entry level hiring. Speed hiring does help us meet our hiring targets."

IT outsourcing firm GlobalLogic' Associate Vice President (HR and L&D) Rajiv Naithani said, "Speed hiring at fresher level helps organisation in big way when companies are looking for immediate absorption of talent pool at junior level."

Rituparna Chakraborty, President of Indian Staffing Federation, however said that the trends being seen at technology startups today is pretty much akin to what used to happen around 2007-08 in the BFSI and telecom sectors.

"Some of these industries are still recovering from the excess (and some obsolete) fat that had got accumulated in the middle layer on account of speed hiring," Chakraborty said.

Chemical and textiles company GHCL Limited's vice president Rajesh Tripathi also said that one may tend to miss out on the cultural fitment of the candidate in the organization during the speed hiring process.

"It may also happen that the recruiter may initially feel less ownership of the entire process," Tripathi added.