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August 9, 2021

HCL TECHNOLOGIES: Leveraging Technology for

Talent Acquisition Transformation
Varre Appa Rao had worked for fourteen years in multiple roles with HCL Technologies, steadily
working his way up through the ranks before taking up the responsibility of Chief Human
Resource Officer (CHRO) in 2017. Sitting in his office on a cold November evening, he met with
two of his core team leaders in HR — Vice President Antaryami Patra and Deputy General
Manager Vikas Singh Baghel — to discuss a new talent acquisition strategy given the aggressive
revenue growth target and expansion plans for FY 2018. The existing talent acquisition system
was not capable of meeting the increased demand for talent. Rao was convinced that the objective
of volume hiring could not be achieved without introducing innovation in hiring methodology.
As a technology service provider, HCL had to leverage technology strategically to reengineer the
current talent acquisition system. Rao was aware that most technology adoptions failed as they
fell short of addressing all relevant parameters. The choice of technology tools was critical to
achieve the objective of making "Hiring Easy" by enhancing the experience, efficiency, and impact
for all three stakeholders, namely the recruiter 1, the hiring manager, and the candidate. Since the
new recruitment process had to be developed based on existing recruitment data, Rao wanted
the HR leaders to identify the right metrics that would accurately map recruiter productivity and
achieve high volume recruitment objectives without compromising on the quality of hire.

ABOUT HCL TECHNOLOGIES— NEW GROWTH STRATEGY

HCL Technologies started in 1976 as one of the Information Technology (IT) start-ups in India.
The organization specialized in empowering enterprises to transform their businesses with next-
generation solutions. The organization offered its products and services under three different
business units: a) IT and Business Services (ITBS) offered application, infrastructure, and digital
process operations, b) Engineering and R&D Services (ERS) provided engineering solutions for
product development and platform engineering, and c) Products & Platforms (P&P) provided
cutting edge customized software solutions to global clients.

In 2017, the Indian IT industry faced three significant disruptions — automation, cloud, and
digitalization. HCL responded to these challenges by formulating a new business strategy called

1 Recruiter is an employee in HR department who is responsible for filling up the open positions in the organization.

Prepared by Dr. Yogita Patra, Research Manager, Indian School of Development Management; Prof. Richa
Saxena, Assistant Professor, Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad,’ Prof. Sunil Sharma, Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. The authors are grateful to the HCL team for their valuable inputs
in developing this case. The authors also thank Prof Abhishek, IMT Ghaziabad, for his useful comments on
the earlier versions of the case.
Cases of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, are prepared as a basis for classroom discussion.
They are not designed to present illustrations of either correct or incorrect handling of administrative
problems.
© 2021 by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
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Mode 1-2-3 to reimagine and rewrite business goals. Rao summarized the strategy envisioned by
the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) as:

“The Mode 1-2-3 strategy threw the spotlight on three concurrent business areas: the
existing core, growth areas, and future opportunities. Mode 1 mainly nudged the
organization to strengthen its leadership position and increasing market share in the
existing core business. Mode 2 directed the organization to pick up speed and step up the
game to grab adjacent opportunities. Mode 2 should lead to the inflection point where
new offerings were created to sustain leadership in the market. Mode 3 was to have a
forward-looking approach and follow the trends shaping the future of business 2.”

As HCL was an IT service firm, the new growth trajectory was contingent upon an effective
organizational talent management strategy. The organization expected to recruit people in large
numbers to support growth. The new system had to be built on principles of speed, quality, cost,
and experience in line with HCL’s philosophy of, "Technology that Touches Lives."

REVENUE, GROWTH AND RECRUITMENT CONTEXT

The organization was anticipated that Mode 1-2-3 strategy would help HCL increase its revenue
from USD 6.98 billion in 2016-17 to USD 7.8 billion in FY 2017-18 and achieve a further growth
13.4-15.4% in FY 2018-19 3 (see Exhibit 1). It was apparent that availability of skilled resources
would be the essential building block of Mode 1-2-3 strategy for ensuring better flexibility in
operations, steadiness, and immediate assistance in scaling business growth.

By 2017, HCL Technologies had over 100,000 employees across the globe. The hiring projections
based on attrition and expansion were 31,693 for 2017-18 and approximately 50,000 fresh lateral
talent for 2018-19 (See Exhibit 1). To meet these ambitious targets, HCL strategized to begin
recruiting from tier-2 cities 4 of India like Madurai, Lucknow, Coimbatore, Vijayawada, and
Nagpur 5. This increased penetration in tier-2 cities required a strong recruitment team and a
supporting infrastructure to hire local talent. With the new business strategy in place, it became
imperative to revisit the existing talent acquisition strategy.

THE TEAM

Patra and Baghel constituted a special team to ideate and execute the new talent acquisition
system. Baghel mentioned:

“Considering HCL had a legacy to keep reinventing its processes and was recognized
across industries for its forward-looking HR practices. Being in a service industry, talent
was the bedrock to achieve business goals. A renewed recruitment system would ensure

2 https://www.hcltech.com/blogs/mode-1-2-3-strategic-blueprint-securing-enterprise-competitiveness, accessed on
March 26, 2020.
3https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/earnings/hcl-technologies-q2-profit-rises-16-to-rs-2540-

crore-rs-2-dividend-announced/articleshow/66331754.cms?from=mdr accessed on April 1, 2020

4 Tier-2 cities have a population of 50,000 to 99,999. Source-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_Indian_cities accessed on July 16, 2020

5 Human Resource Update provided in Financial Report FY 2017-18,

file:///C:/HCL%20Tech/Annual%20Reports/HCL%20annual_report_2018.pdf, accessed on April 1, 2020

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 3 of 17 A00353

HR’s participation in the organization's success story. We decided to constitute a team

under the name Talent Acquisition Centre of Excellence (TA CoE), which would create
and drive innovative recruiting methods to make HCL future-ready for growth.”

Baghel chose three recently joined young management professionals for the CoE team (see Exhibit
2) and assigned them the responsibility of reviewing the old system, ideating new changes, and
selecting the metrics for measuring recruiter productivity.

DEMAND FULFILMENT PROCESS

The demand fulfilment process 6 typically commenced with the hiring manager raising the
demand and sending it to the HR department for validation and approval. As part of the process,
the recruiter would first look into the organization's available talent pool. The bench pool 7 was
accessed to fill the vacancy and was referred to as internal fulfilment. If the hiring manager was
not satisfied with the available options from the bench pool, the same requisition moved to
external hiring. The process was then extended to external fulfilment (candidates selected from
the external job market) from resumes uploaded on the HCL website, job portals, or employee
referrals. The recruiter would then dive into the resume repository available through all the
recruiting channels to match the skill and experience required by the hiring manager. Once the
hiring manager shortlisted the resumes, the recruiter would schedule two technical interviews—
first with the technical panel (TP1) and the second with the client's 8 technical panel (TP2) —
followed by an HR assessment. If selected in both the interviews, the HR would send the
approved offer to the candidate. After acceptance of the offer by the candidate, the Background
Verification 9 (BGV) process was initiated before on-boarding (see Exhibit 3).

Home-grown System till FY 2012

Till FY 2011-12, the fulfilment was mostly managed manually. A single recruiter managed the
entire cycle of recruitment for each candidate. The hiring manager e-mailed the demand for the
resource, and the recruiter initiated the process of shortlisting and screening resumes, and
organizing interviews with the hiring manager manually. Recruiters’ actions were guided by
their individual competence and inputs from the Line of Business (LOB) 10 one catered to. Each
recruiter had their resume database. There was no single repository source for the resumes
received from job postings, social platforms, or employee referrals. Resumes were not cross
leveraged for different departments. Sometimes a single candidate was interviewed by several
LOBs leading to duplication. At times, all LOBs used to compete for slots for campus hiring,
leading to massive wastage of time and resources. Due to the lack of a uniform baseline and
metrics, recruitment was mainly driven by recruiter’s preference and perception. The only

6 Demand fulfilment process is a business term in IT industry which describes the process of filling up open vacancies.
7 Bench pool refers to the pool of existing employees released from previous projects but not assigned to a new project
at that given time.
8 Client refers the organization/business purchasing services from HCL. Typically, such engagements are referred to

as projects and hiring talent from the market depends on the skill requirement of the project offered by the client to
HCL.
9 BGV- The verification done by an authorized third party to validate the information provided by the candidate. It is

initiated once HCL releases an offer to join, and the candidate uploads the documents on the link provided by the
recruiter.
10 LOB (Line of Business) is a general term that describes a corporate division in a large enterprise/ organization.

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technology intervention in the whole process was the release of the offer letter. Almost 90% of the
process was manual.

New System from FY 2013 to 2017

During this period, HCL introduced significant changes in the Talent Acquisition Group (TAG)
to develop the HR function as a strategic partner. Specific customized layers were added to the
Application Tracking Systems (ATS) tool sourced from the market, and a new platform named
iTAP (Ideapreneurship 11 Talent Acquisition Platform) was created. The objective was to segregate
each responsibility (application sourcing, shortlisting of candidates, scheduling interviews, HR
interviews, and rolling out offers to the candidate) in the recruitment process (Exhibit 4). 12
Segregation of each task enhanced the speed of the recruitment.

iTAP helped in managing the variability of the process very well by increasing hiring numbers
significantly. It also reduced duplication of activities. The system was functional and used for
recruitment until 2017. In FY 2016-17, demand fulfilment across the globe employed a total of 717
recruiters, and the entire process took an average of 56 days before the candidate could come on
board. The organization rolled out approximately 52,796 offers to hire 37,740 fresh candidates
(see Exhibit 5). Although the numbers managed by the system were increasing, several activities
were still done manually. This posed a significant challenge.

CHALLENGES WITH THE EXISTING RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Though iTAP helped in managing the massive influx and churning of resumes for recruiters
across locations, important recruitment activities were still being handled manually. Approval of
talent demand from the hiring manager was done manually to execute internal and external
demand fulfilment. Screening of resumes was also done manually, which resulted a time-
consuming process to secure a match for vacant positions. Due to a poor manual match between
the hiring managers' job description and the pool of talent available, the recruiters were going
through numerous resumes. They would make calls to fix the first Technical Panel (TP1)
interview based on the candidate and hiring manager's availability. Interview with the second
Technical Panel (TP2) was scheduled according to the client availability where the project was to
be executed. Once the necessary approvals were taken, the HR in-person interview was fixed,
and the offer was released. BGV was initiated post-offer acceptance (see Exhibit 5).

The focus on quantity of hires over quality was proved detrimental to the business. Gleaning
inventory or the recruiter's proactive pipeline depended on individual wisdom of recruiters and
hiring managers’ for selection of candidates for interviews. There was no emphasis on attracting
competent prospects from the market. None of the recruiters were showcasing brand HCL by
engaging with the candidates; instead, they were busy in mundane activities like follow-ups for
feedback and scheduling interviews with the candidate and the hiring manager. There was a lack
of focus on managing candidate relationship or engagement with the passive talent. 13

11 Ideapreneurship is HCL's unique innovation culture where employees get the opportunity to ideate and drive the

idea to fruition. https://microsite.hcltech.com/ultimateideapreneur/ accessed on March 26, 2020.

12 https://www.hcltech.com/careers/recruitment-process-hcl-tech, accessed on March 26, 2020.
13 Passive talents are prospective candidates who are not actively looking for a job in the market currently. They could

have been satisfactorily employed, providing a valuable contribution to their present organization.

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Every weekend drive witnessed an average of 100-200 candidates being interviewed by hiring
managers across India. This caused disgruntlement amongst prospective candidates as there was
a relatively long waiting period for a couple of rounds of interviews. The candidate experience
was now a prime concern. Social media-savvy candidates would immediately upload their
feedback regarding any glitches in the process, influencing all prospective candidates across the
job market. On the other hand, recruiters felt burnt out as all interviews were scheduled over the
weekend, as well as multiple rounds of follow-up involved.

Additionally, the more concerning aspect was burnout of hiring managers as they were
interviewing candidates the whole day. This posed a threat of subconscious bias influencing in
the selection process. Overall, the process was not satisfactory for all three stakeholders, i.e.,
candidate, recruiter, and hiring manager, in terms of overall experience. The choice of source of
the resume was random irrespective of which channel was delivering the most high-quality
candidates. The recruiters were more focused on matching the candidates' skills with the job
description provided by the hiring manager and were oblivious of the channel source. While the
sources for internal demand fulfilment through the bench pool was clear, there was no clear
source for external demand fulfilment.

The hiring manager provided feedback via e-mail after the face-to-face interview. Once the
candidate was rejected, the resume would automatically go out of the system. The feedback
would rest in the recruiter's inbox and was not analysed for the cause of rejection and the
candidate’s suitability for any other project in the future. Like evaluation and travel costs, other
recruitment expenses were high because of multiple interviews scheduled for a single open
demand, which increased the overall cost and total time to fulfil the demand. The recruiters were
also apprehensive about whether their jobs would be safe in the future as technology intervention
might automate a significant chunk of the process. Hiring managers also had similar inhibitions
about automation. They were sceptical about their role and ability to choose a candidate for final
selection. The communication needed to be clear and crisp to all the stakeholders.

There was no established process to measure recruiter productivity as each recruiter was only
managing her silo and was not responsible for the end-to-end process holistically. There was no
way to measure individual recruiter effort and efficiency as multiple recruiters were engaged
during different stages of the process for every single candidate. The speedy process on iTAP did
not assure that the recruiters were adhering to the guidelines for quality. There was no method
to flag non-compliance issues at the recruiter level. Though the incumbent system was
sophisticated and transparent, it could not assure hiring a quality candidate.

SEARCH FOR A TECHNOLOGY ENABLED SYSTEM

HCL decided to explore new-age technology like chatbots, IVR calls, mobile video interviewing,
Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to upgrade and transform
the existing recruitment system. Exhibit 6 elaborates upon the functionalities of some of these
tools. The requisite functionalities from the new system were in three main areas of innovation:
a) use of advanced automation to minimise human intervention to the point of negligibility by
upgrading each step of recruitment, b) to enhance user experience; and c) target passive
candidates who had yet not applied at HCL to generate a pipeline for future requirements. The
objective was to smoothen the process flow right from raising demand, screening resumes by
recruiters, and candidate assessment until the interview.

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The CoE utilized both structured and unstructured information from iTAP and to improve speed
and accuracy for the new recruitment system. Structured information like reports could help in
understanding the speed of each in the recruitment process. Technology could help with
unstructured information like the keywords used for skill, experience etc in the resume during
the screening process and convert them into quantifiable insights. The existing Application
Tracking System (ATS) could be improved to create a new system aligned with new strategic
goals. As each step of recruitment was recorded on the system, the nodes where repetitive tasks
consumed recruiters’ time and focus could be substituted by automation on ATS.

Most of the candidates had general queries about the recruitment process, eligibility,
compensation, etc which were repetitive in nature and amounted to unproductive work for the
recruiter. Though HCL had created a section of FAQs on their website, the candidates continued
to pose similar queries both before and after the recruitment process. The TA CoE team began to
wonder how the algorithm in AI could be leveraged to screen and select accurate resumes from
the available repository according to the choice of the hiring manager. Based on the selection or
rejection of resumes by the hiring manager, the algorithm would constantly change and readjust
to enhance accuracy. As more data was fed in the system continuously, the algorithm would
improve. Another crucial aspect to maintain the quality of hiring was assessment of the
candidates. The team had to use appropriate technology tools that could help in designing
customised written assessments based on the job description.

NLP helped in reading the full text of the resumes and comparing them to the job description. It
could stack rank 14 the resumes to provide the best match to the job description provided by the
hiring manager. This would save recruiters’ valuable time by reducing repetitive tasks, thus
freeing up attention for more strategic work. Through technology, all the recruitment steps
executed with minimal human intervention could become a reality for all stakeholders. The team
had to brainstorm about the relevant technology tool to plug in at every stage of recruitment to
get the desired outcome. The idea was to use technology to minimise mundane administrative
tasks of the recruiters, simultaneously removing human bias. As technology was going to be the
prime facilitator, the team decided to name the new initiative “Techruit” - an amalgamation of
technology and recruitment.

EXPECTATIONS FROM NEW TECH ENABLED RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Rao wanted the recruiters to take a novel approach towards demand fulfilment. They needed to
understand the importance of engagement with candidates throughout the recruitment process
and stop doing mind-numbing work of only sourcing and shuffling the resumes. The goal was to
increase technology component in the process and reduce elements of human interface.
Recruiters were expected to engage in more value-added jobs like engaging with the candidates,
showcasing brand HCL to them, and selling them more open vacancies. The organization
identified experience as the key differentiator. In essence, the challenge was to build a talent
supply chain model that served for 'speed and quality at the right cost.' Rao recalled:

“When I shared my vision for talent acquisition at HCL Technologies in 2017 with the
team, we already had a system (iTAP) which was capable of volume hiring. However, I
emphasized that our theme had to be different for future Our growth story was on target.

14 Resumes ranked high to low based the closest match to the job description.

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We needed a new recruitment system. that could cater to high volume hiring needs but
still could deliver: a) experience, b) efficiency, and c) impact. If we did not provide
candidate experience, there were ten other competitors ready to grab the opportunity to
hire her. Hence, in order to stay ahead of competition in the war for talent the speed to
hire needed to be on point too.”

Experience

Long before a candidate even applied for a job in the IT industry, she started developing
perceptions about potential employers. In a strong IT job market where multiple companies were
vying for niche skills and competencies, HCL realized that candidate experience would be a
crucial competitive differentiator. The ease of usability of the new system was essential for
building a candidate’s perception of applying to a great workplace. Each touchpoint with the
candidate needed to be automated. The goal was to create a lasting relationship with passive
candidates through social media proactively and reduce time spent on mundane activities. The
simple fact was that "Marketing the recruitment was the future!". Techruit was required to
provide a seamless experience with finesse for both the internal (see Exhibit 7) and external (see
Exhibit 8) fulfilment process. The team was instructed to use the most cost-effective technology
to provide a great experience to all three stakeholders.

Efficiency

The IT sector was a candidate-driven market where prospective employees could be demanding
and weigh multiple employers for their worth before making a final choice. HCL would have to
prove its worth as an organization if it wanted to pick up great candidates from the job market.
The system had to be responsive enough to hold the candidate before anyone else in the market.
The recruiter hiring ratio in FY 2016-17 was 1:52 (see Exhibit 5). The direction was to increase the
fulfilment numbers with lesser or same number of recruiters. The TAG CoE had to contemplate
how technology would act as an enabler to improve the process efficiency. HCL had to break
recruiters’ comfort zone and push them to use new technology to make the process short and
effective. The plan was to provide training to recruiters for the necessary technical know-how to
operate the new system prior to its formal launch. To make the process as swift as possible, it was
pertinent to dive deep into the system and chart out time spent by recruiter on each step in the
recruitment process. Rao believed that for all successful changes were based on data-driven
decisions. He suggested Patra and Baghel took the help of DILOs 15. A total of fifteen days of
recruiter responsibility was mapped to understand each activity's time usage (see Exhibit 9).
Accordingly, the activities could be categorized into Value-Added (VA), Non-Value-Added
(NVA), and Essential but Non-Value-Added (ENVA) activities to decide which ones could be
abolished entirely and which ones to be retained and executed through technology.

Impact

Apart from the speed of demand fulfilment, maintaining the quality of hire was equally
important. HCL was vigilant about any irregularities that might infect the recruitment process
and result in hiring the wrong candidate. Compliance to monitor the predefined process and

15DILOs- Day In Life Of studies. A minute-by-minute review of each activity undertaken by the recruiters to identify
value-added and non-value-added activities and their root cause to minimize and curtail unproductive work

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guidelines at all locations wherever Techruit was rolled out was also a major focus area. The
information on ATS could be used to point out any irregularity. The control mechanism was
required to ensure adherence to process and suggest corrective action for recruiters based on the
nature of the non-compliance before the offer was rolled out to the candidate. The team was
required to identify and document predefined parameters and constitute non-compliance reasons
for publishing them and the corrective action for each non-compliance. The intended outcome
was to obtain a quality candidate at an optimal cost.

TRANSFORMATION OF TALENT ACQUISITION LANDSCAPE THROUGH TECHRUIT

HCL wanted to think proactively and create a pipeline for future talent requirements. From the
strategic perspective, the recruitment process needed a more in-depth analysis of multiple
parameters to enhance its effectiveness and speed. The objective was to choose the metrics (refer
to Exhibit 11 for the explanation of all the metrics) based on the insights from Techruit. The
insights could range from the average number of resumes screened, interviews scheduled, offers
released to offers accepted per recruiter, choice of channel usage for the fulfilment of demand,
and interview evidence of candidate by empanelled TP1 & TP2. The CoE was expected to dive
deep and collate a bouquet of metrics that would cover the objective of mapping recruiter
productivity.

Productivity Parameters: The new system was expected to enhance a recruiter's preparedness to
proactively maintain a pipeline that could fill the open positions with minimum time and effort.
TAG CoE allocated certain activities which a recruiter would have to log in Techruit like updating
the number of applications received and the number of resumes shortlisted for an open demand,
which would measure Application Success Rate (ASR). The recruiters were supposed to mention
the channel source from where the candidate had been selected. They were also supposed to log
several shortlisted candidates who went through interviews and were eventually given offers.
This insight into the Conversion Ratio (CR) could help measure how many applications the
recruiter needed to consider to fill in one open demand. The resume repository had to be always
available for the perusal of all recruiters and hiring managers on Techruit.

The endeavour was to improve Lead Time to Fulfilment (LTF) of 56 days in FY 2016-17 for
enhanced Yield Ratio (YR), i.e., moving each candidate from one step of the recruitment process
to the next. As a single recruiter was responsible for end-to-end process completion, Techruit
could quickly provide the number of candidates Joining per Recruiter (JPR). A JPR of 4.4 was
calculated (refer to Exhibit 11 for explaining the calculation of JPR) in FY 2016-17. Prima facie,
focusing on improving LTF and JPR meant that the process efficiency would improve, but it
would not necessarily align with business goals. The balance that the recruiter was expected to
maintain was between improving the yield ratio and hiring quality candidates. The metrics could
help in measuring recruiter productivity.

Cost Parameters: The most severe issues that had plagued the Indian IT industry were Renege
Rate (RR) and Early Attrition (EA) (refer to Exhibit 11 for the explanation of all the metrics). RR
signified the number of candidates whose offer was rolled out, but they backed off and did not
join. This meant the recruitment machinery had done a full circle of shortlisting, screening,
interviewing, selection, and sending an offer, but all in vain. While all the resources were engaged
in the process, the effort did not bear any fruit. High RR of 22% in FY 2016-17 (see Exhibit 5)

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suggested that the engagement with the potential joiner and handholding through the
recruitment process was somewhat lacking.

Similarly, EA could also be considered as a parameter to assess the robustness of the recruitment
process. It was expected that if the recruiter had engaged with the candidate, provided clarity on
the job role, and set clear expectations, the candidates would not leave the organization within a
year of joining. For FY 2016-17, the early attrition was 11.38%, which increased slightly to 11.83%,
when iTAP was used for recruitment (see Exhibit 5).

The CHRO wanted recruiters to choose and utilize the right hiring source be it Direct Channel
Source (DCS), Agency, or Employee referral, to obtain better ROI 16. The underlying aspect was
to reduce BGV rejections due to misinformation provided in the respective channel resumes. The
BGV stage was the last stage before joining, which meant that the organization had wasted time
and resources on a potential candidate who was not worthy of selection. Additionally, employee
referrals would incur expenses in terms of referral fee pay-out and impact Cost per Hire (CPH)
adversely. Agency and employee referral accounted for a whopping total of 51% of fulfilment in
FY 2016-17 (see Exhibit 10). The channel's choice was required to allow the reutilization of
resumes multiple times for other open demands in the future. The hiring channel's insight would
strengthen HCL's resolve to use the channel, which helped hire quality candidates. It was a
guiding light for recruiters to post open demands that targeted the best audience and provided
maximum ROI. Both RR and EA also contributed to the cost to the company. The lack of
reutilization of resumes from iTAP was detrimental in lowering the CPH, which amounted to
USD 901 in FY 2016-17.

Compliance Parameters: Quality of hire as a metric was as important, if not more so, than
maintaining the speed of demand fulfilment. There should be a considerable amount of
information that a recruiter should fetch from Techruit daily. HCL had to choose either to leave
compliance up to the recruiters or form a separate team to ensure adherence and suggest
corrective actions. The non-compliance had to be flagged before the recruiter rolled out the offer
to the candidate. For each candidate, TP1 and TP2 had to be different hiring managers. The
employee referral could not be part of the interview panel. Empanelled interviewers' names and
details had to be logged in the new system for transparency. At least one interview had to be
either face to face or through video conferencing. Any discrepancy led to corrective action, and
the transaction to be put on hold until the recruiter resolved the issue.

Techruit's main task was to curtail the weekend interview drives significantly. With high
projections of hiring volume, the strategy was to reduce the load of weekend interviews
gradually. The need for physical presence needed to perish in modern times. The priority was to
investigate and identify the more profound impacts of Techruit from an efficiency, experience,
and impact perspective.

16ROI of recruitment channel- suggests the return on investment of an external channel that the organization engages
and pays for a license to source resumes for recruitment. The ROI is considered high if resumes considered get
converted into the selection and offer acceptance by the candidate.

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METRICS THAT MATTER

Techruit was able to bring positive experience to all the three stakeholders. Refer to the Exhibit
12 for representative testimonials of the stakeholders. Patra and Baghel hoped that the CHRO
would appreciate their overall approach for improving recruiter productivity and lowering CPH
while upholding hire quality through leveraging technology. They both recalled the initial
discussion where he had mentioned that recruitment goals should be quantified for a successful
recruitment process. The team wanted to use the recruitment metrics more than just reporting.
They aimed to extract actionable measures for recruiters. The strategic goals were to improve the
experience and measure recruiter productivity while hiring quality candidates. It was imperative
therefore to consider data that would track the critical performance of the recruiters. Patra
mentioned:

“The directions from CHRO were clear in terms of the end objective. Solving for efficiency,
experience, and impact through technology to transform traditional recruitment methods
at HCL Technologies. Techruit would strengthen the recruitment process by providing
insights. Nevertheless, proactive anticipation of future talent demand depends on the
right recruitment metrics that the organization chooses. The challenge that lied ahead was
to consider the metrics which would not only make the end objective meet but also define
the key performance areas of the recruiters.” 17

The TA CoE team was excited as month-long discussions and brainstorming with multiple
internal teams and stakeholders had provided a lot of precious ideas to improve the system. In a
meeting with the CHRO, it was time to present to him the technology tools and bouquet of metrics
chosen. The TAG CoE had six months to plan and three more months to implement Techruit for
HCL to see concrete results by mid-2018.

17 Patra recalled that choosing the right metrics to measure the recruiter's performance was the real challenge.

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Exhibit 1: Lateral Hiring Required based on Revenue Growth Projections

2016-17 2017-18 2018-19

Revenues 6,975 7,838 -
Revenue Growth Projection 10-12% 10.5-12.5% 13.4-15.4%
Headcount 1,15,973 1,25,000 1,37,965
External Fulfilment 37,740 31,693 Appx 50,000
*Revenue figures are in USD million
* FY 2016 headcount figures are for nine months as HCL Technologies changed its current Financial Year by shortening
it to 9 months, i.e., to end on March 31, 2016 (from July 01, 2015, to March 31, 2016).
Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

Exhibit 2: Structure of the Centre of Excellence Team

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

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Exhibit 3: Demand Fulfilment Process at HCL Technologies

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

Exhibit 4: Recruitment Process Through iTAP from FY 2013 to 2017

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

Exhibit 5: Recruitment Data from FY 2016-17

2016-17
External Fulfilment 37,740
Number of Recruiters 717
Recruiter/Hiring Ratio 1:52
Offers Rolled out 52,796
Joining Per Recruiter 4.4
Lead Time to Fulfilment 56 days
Renege Rate 22%
Early Attrition (Within 1 year) 11.38%
Cost Per Hire 901
% reduction in CPH NA*

*CPH values are in USD

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

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 13 of 17 A00353

Exhibit 6: Functionality of New-age Technology Tools

Technology Tool Functionality

Application Tracking System A software that allows organizations to upload resumes to create
(ATS) a repository. Accessible to both hiring managers and recruiters to
enhance inter-departmental communication. Hiring managers can
upload feedback and recruiters can update status of each
application pertaining to an open demand.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) AI uses a combination of experience, changing inputs and
evolving algorithm to simulate human intelligence processes by
machines. The algorithm keeps developing continuously by
processing large amounts of data and recognizing patterns in it.
These patterns can be used to select a particular kind of CV for a
matching job description.
Natural Language Processing The main objective of NLP is to read, decipher, understand, and
(NLP) make sense of human languages. It has the capability to process
and analyse large texts and infer information and insights. It can
help in key word searching with great accuracy.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) A telephonic menu system that routes incoming callers to
Calls access/gather information through pre-recorded voice response
messages without speaking to a human.
Chatbots A computer program that facilitates a chat interface. A chatbot
responds based on the knowledge database available in the
program. Bots utilize pattern match to identify the text/question
asked and provide an appropriate reply.
Mobile Video Conferencing Video conferencing through mobile application. Both verbal and
non-verbal responses can also be analysed. The recordings can
be utilized for future reference as well.

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 14 of 17 A00353

Exhibit 7: Internal Fulfilment workflow through Techruit

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

Exhibit 8: External Fulfilment workflow through Techruit

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

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 15 of 17 A00353

Exhibit 9: Fifteen-day DILOs Recruiter Activity Dashboard

Time
spent
Activities of Recruiter LOB-1 LOB-1I LOB-III LOB-1V
on each
Activity
Sourcing of profiles 01:10:10 01:01:35 01:15:30 01:01:48 01:07:16
Telephonic screening of profiles - Interest
01:05:34 01:02:59 01:04:28 00:57:49 01:02:42
Check
HR Discussion 00:48:02 00:48:48 01:34:33 00:50:33 01:00:29
Follow up with offered candidate 01:16:55 00:57:17 00:00:10 00:51:24 00:46:27
Workflow updation on ATS 00:58:56 01:11:45 01:13:02 00:51:28 01:03:48
Report preparations 00:48:02 00:48:48 01:34:33 00:50:33 01:00:29
Follow up with candidate for coordination on
00:58:56 01:11:45 01:13:02 00:51:28 01:03:48
joining day for smooth onboard
Call letter sending follow up etc for weekend
01:02:47 00:29:53 00:49:13 01:04:39 00:51:38
drive
Follow-up with BGV team on BGV clearance 01:05:08 01:11:10 01:08:05 00:29:11 00:58:24
Coordinating with hiring manager for interview 01:05:08 01:11:10 01:08:05 00:29:11 00:58:24
Coordinating with the candidate for interview 00:48:02 00:48:48 01:34:33 00:50:33 01:00:29
Follow up with next day joiners 00:58:56 01:11:45 01:13:02 00:51:28 01:03:48
Follow up for document collection for BGV 00:32:07 00:47:37 - 00:00:02 00:26:35
Follow up for JD clarity / Feedbacks from
00:32:07 00:47:37 - 00:00:02 00:26:35
hiring manager
Weekend drive coordination- candidate line-
01:02:47 00:29:53 00:49:13 01:04:39 00:51:38
up, panel co-ordination with Hiring managers

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

Exhibit 10: Sourcing Channel Data from FY 2016 to 2018

Hiring Source 2016-17 2017-18

Direct Channel 49% 74%
Agency 31% 10%
Employee Referral 20% 16%
Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

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 16 of 17 A00353

Exhibit 11: Recruitment Metrics

S. Recruitment Short
Calculated as
No. Metrics Form
Application Number of applications shortlisted for an open demand / Total
1 ASR
Success Rate applications considered for that demand X 100
Number of applications shortlisted for an open demand / Offers
2 Conversion Ratio CR
given to the candidates from this shortlisted list
Percentage of candidates passing from one stage of
3 Yield Ratio YR
recruitment to the next in the process
Number of candidates who did not join after receiving offer
4 Renege Rate RR
letter / Total offers generated for selected candidates X 100
Joining per No. of candidates joined in a year/ Total no. of recruiters in that
5 JPR
Recruiter year X 12
Time from when the demand is raised by the hiring manager
Lead Time to
6 LTF until demand closure date when the offer is sent to the
Fulfilment
candidate
Direct Channel Data accumulated over time from applications received from
7 DCS
Source candidates on the web portal of the HCL Technologies website
Total hiring cost (internal + external) incurred in a period/ Total
8 Cost per Hire CPH
number of hires in that period
Employees who leave the organization within one year of
9 Early Attrition EA
joining

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

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 17 of 17 A00353

Exhibit 12: Testimonials of different stakeholders

“We are happy with the way Salesforce TAG team has used [Techruit]. It has brought down panel effort as
well as helping them to take up face-to-face interviews with much ease. Many candidates are also very
happy to see advanced tools to take up interviews. Appreciate TAG using it effectively. Thanks for reducing
panel effort and saving their bandwidth. Always being first to bring-in new ways of working to solve
challenges.” (A Hiring Manager)

“Techruit has been able to address the gap of time delays of sourcing and matching profiles as per the
multiple job mandates which ERS has been involved. We have been able to consolidate all our scattered
Talent pipeline as a single repository i.e. Auto search and match platform and this has helped to an extent
on our dependency on external JOB boards and agency supports. The scheduling and interview
management platform has reduced the in-person interview dependency. Interviews can be closed via phone
/ video with ease which are recorded and can be used for future reference too.

Techruit has cut down on the screening rejections and has increased the screen selection ratio as part of
the evaluation process. Clustering of skills based on Resumes vs. skill competency has helped the Talent
Acquisition Specialist to narrow down the search across multiple skills when they scout for talent. It has
given the Talent Specialist to get a better view on the resume vs. their hiring status.

There has been quite a bit of cost leakage w.r.t. resume inventory utilization and as well were not getting
parsed till Techruit was incorporated. Now we are able to replace job portals to an extent as the platform
throws up a decent amount of relevant resumes for our current needs. With scheduling and interview
management platform also we can reduce the dependency of waiting for candidates’ availability for face-
to-face discussion and close it through video interviews as per availability.”

(Talent Acquisition Lead)

“[The] current process is efficient enough to get a perfect candidate. It was an amazing experience
[throughout the recruitment process]. Process and steps followed for process and interview were good. I
felt that the process happened professionally and confidentially.”

(An Anonymous Candidate)

Source: Provided by HCL Technologies

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