Name RAHUL BAJPAI

Name of B-School Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad

E-Mail ID & Contact no. rahulone46@gmail.com & 08447144265
Specialization Human Resources (HR)
Title of Summer Internship
Project
Building Effective Hiring Systems
Company Name Info Edge India Ltd. (Naukri.com)
Details of Industry Guide Savita Sharma, Associate Vice-President (HR), Info
Edge India Ltd.
Executive Summary (Area:HR)
The primary purpose of the research is to build effective hiring systems, which form the
backbone of the organization. This was required to be done through three parts.
Employee Referral Policy at Info Edge India Ltd. (hereby referred to as IEIL in this report)
was reviewed and benchmarked against 18 parameters with the Referral Policies of 13
companies. Primary Research was also done in the form of an internal survey which was
rolled out to only those employees in the tech and sales teams who had referred candidates
earlier. Finally, the HR team handling the policy was interviewed. Based upon the inputs
from primary and secondary research, a final new policy was drafted and specific
recommendations on implementation were given.
To build effective hiring systems for the niche product management roles, the entire
process was divided into two parts-Campus Branding and Campus Hiring Process. It is to be
noted that the organization hires for this role only from the IIMs, SPJIMR & FMS. The need
for this arised because of three reasons given below:
Limited visibility and employer knowledge about IEIL on campuses
Limited understanding about the niche roles being offered
Limited availability of talent pool (demand for talent being more than supply)
Ultimately, 15 companies processes were considered for benchmarking of final placement
process, 9 companies processes were considered for benchmarking of summer internship
placement processes and 15 companies processes were considered for benchmarking of
campus engagement strategies and activities which include case study competitions, guest
lectures, field trips, workshops, campus ambassadors etc. These campuses covered all the old
IIMs, FMS-Delhi, ISB-Hyderabad, SPJIMR, IMT-G, MICA and XLRI.
Thus, after considering students opinions and preferences (through the survey), recruiters
feedback (through the interviews), studying the selection processes of various companies
during summer internships and final placements (through interviews and benchmarking) and
understanding the actual needs of the product management teams (through interviews with
the associates in the team), the final set of recommendations for both employer branding at
campuses and campus hiring processes were given.
To build effective hiring systems for the niche design roles, 11 graduates from NIDs
(National Institutes of Design) currently at Info Edge, working as interns as well as regular
employees, were extensively interviewed, with each interview lasting for 25 minutes. An
internal survey among the NIDians at IEIL was also conducted to identify critically important
factors for accepting and rejecting a job offer. Since the sample size was very less,
mathematical analysis was done to arrive at the critically important factors. Opinions of
students about other companies, their placement processes, and engagement activities were
asked and accordingly comparison was done to plan a suitable campus engagement and
branding strategy for Info Edge.
Problem Definition
The primary purpose of the project was to build effective hiring systems, which form the
backbone of the organization. This was done through the three parts specified in the brief that
was given.
1. Proposing a new Employee Referral Policy: Specific to Info Edge India Ltd. (IEIL), the
implementation of an effective Employee Referral Policy is very different from other
organizations. Because IEIL can easily source resumes from Naukri.com portal (Naukri.com
being part of IEIL), inviting referrals incurs cost to the company in the form of payment of
bonus figures to referring employees. However, given the fact that referred candidates stick
to the organization longer than candidates sourced from other means and also, performance of
referred candidates is higher than those of other candidates, it is very important for IEIL to
effectively implement a strong Referral Policy to reduce turnover and increase retention of
employees.
2. Building a campus hiring process and suggesting employer branding strategies on relevant
campuses for
Product Management roles: The role of Product Manager at Info Edge India Ltd.
(IEIL) is business critical & extremely niche. The incumbent, recruited from one of
the top 10 Indian B-Schools, is required to lead the product strategy of one of the
product offerings (Naukri.com, 99acres.com, Jeevansathi.com & Shiksha.com) of
IEIL. There is intense competition for acquiring talent from internet & e-commerce
firms like Amazon, Flipkart, Yahoo! etc on campuses during summer internship and
final placements. This is coupled with the problem of limited visibility of IEIL on
campus since students are aware about the product offerings but not about IEIL being
the umbrella company. Hence, the need arises for employer branding & redesigning
the campus hiring processes to ensure the best candidates available are brought on-
board.
UI/UX Designer roles: For web-design roles, IEIL recruits from the National
Institutes of Design (NID), where the number of students is very less, students have
about 2-3 offers in hand to choose from for diploma internships & final placements &
there is immense competition from several large multinational companies. Also,
diploma interns would not stay back after completing their internships & instead, join
competitors. To tap this issue, it was necessary to design an employer branding
strategy for IEIL at NID & to suggest improvements in the hiring process.
Methodology
1. Proposing a new Employee Referral Policy: Referral policies of 13 companies were
studied. These were healthy mix of manufacturing, IT, e-commerce, BPOs and conglomerate.
They were benchmarked upon the following criteria:

An internal survey was also conducted among the employees of Tech and Sales roles, since a
major chunk of referrals comes from those employees. 55 employees were approached to fill
the anonymous online survey which consisted of the 13 questions. 41 responses were
received. The survey was kept anonymous to ensure authenticity in responses.
2. Campus Hiring Process& Employer Branding on Campus-Product Management roles: A
questionnaire was prepared and floated among the current students at nearly 10 premium B-
Schools across India (including but not limited to MDI-G, IIM-Indore, NMIMS, FMS, IIM-
K, SCMHRD, SIBM (Pune) and IIM-A). The questionnaire (consisting of 16 questions) was
designed to understand the psychology and preferences of MBA students regarding summer
internship placements and final placements and also the various engagement activities
conducted by companies on these campuses. Over 2650 responses were recorded.
Interviews with 10 full-time associates working in the Product development team were done.
Apart from validating the survey results, the purpose was also to get an in-depth insight into
the campus hiring process of Info Edge vis--vis other companies which come on the campus
with the product development roles, to gauge the visibility of Info Edge (as a whole) on the
campuses and know more about what other companies do to engage Gen-Yers on the
campuses. These 10 full-time associates are graduates from IIM-B, IIM-C, SPJIMR, FMS
and IIM-A. Also interviewed were the product development team interns (2 numbers, from
FMS) and marketing interns (3 numbers, from MICA and XLRI). The purpose was to delve
deep into the selection processes of different companies for summer internships and to know
more about campus engagement activities of reputed organisations. Interviews were also
conducted with 7 Senior VPs, Executive VPs and VPs, who visit these colleges for the
recruitment process and at IEIL, head the businesses and product development teams. This
was done to understand if the competencies desired in a product manager are actually being
tested during the interview process and to incorporate their suggestions into the design.
Benchmarking was done separately for the summer internship and final placement processes
separately as also for the employer branding strategies of the competitor companies on
campus. Consider a very small part of the benchmarking of branding on campus strategies of
a few companies considered below.

The survey results, analysed on SPSS, together with benchmarking results and recruiters
feedback were all used to arrive at a campus hiring process and employer branding strategy
for IEIL.
Company Campus Case Study Competition Guest Lectures Workshops Field Trips Other
ABG
Ivy
League - - - - Simulation game contest
HUL XLRI
tie-up with PUMA:based on
launching a new shoe
segment Yes - - -
ITC XLRI Yes-all campuses - - Yes -
P&G
Top B-
Schools
Final case study competition
based on weekly winners - - -
Weekly contests on FB,
winners into P&G dream
team
HCCB MICA - - - - MDPs
Jubilant
Foodworks(Domino
s) IMT - Yes - Yes MDPs, Live Projects
Reckitt Benckiser
Top B-
Schools Yes Yes - - Campus ambassador
Info Edge All No - No No No
Marico Top B-
Schools
Yes Yes Yes
-
1 branding competition
every week for a new
launch
Bharti Airtel
Top B-
Schools
Yes Yes Yes
- -
Mahindra &
Mahindra
Top B-
Schools
Yes Yes Yes
Yes -
3. Campus Hiring Process& Employer Branding on Campus-Web Design roles: 11 NIDians
currently at Info Edge, working as interns as well as regular employees, were extensively
interviewed, with each interview lasting for 25 minutes. Information regarding different
companies visiting these campuses during their fest, diploma internship placements and final
placements was gathered and also, details of the activities of companies to engage campus
students were extracted. Benchmarking was done on 9 criteria. Selection processes,
stipend/CTC Offered, campus branding and campus engagement strategies of 9 companies
were compared.
Based upon the interviews, several factors came up which NIDians consider important while
accepting an offer as well as when rejecting an offer. Those factors were written separately
and consequently, a 5-point Likert scale was employed and the short survey was floated
among the 9 NIDians interviewed. The neutral choice was also included. They were asked to
rank the selections from 1 to 5 in order of their relative importance. These rankings were
weighted and 3 critical factors, each (for accepting and rejecting) were found upon
mathematical analysis. Consider the table below for example.

The final recommendations will be based upon the insights from the mathematical analysis
done above as well as benchmarking.
Findings & Conclusion
The most important findings have been listed below:
1. Employee Referral Policy (ERP):
100% companies require the referrer to be employed at the time of payment of the
referral bonus. I nfo Edge does the same.
Since 53% of Info Edge employees know about the ERP by word of mouth and 0%
have read it, it would do good, if a link to the ERP is given in the same E-mail so that
people are very clear about the policy. It was also deduced that branding the ERP was
very important.
None of the HRs in all the companies had any idea on how the bonus figures were
arrived at.
2. Campus Hiring Process & Employer Branding on Campus (Product Management):
Currently, the companies that organise case study competitions are already perceived
among the top companies to work for by MBA students. IEIL, however, has not yet
reached the stage of being the preferred employer. Also, as was inferred from the
interviews, IEIL has limited visibility and recognition on campuses. People are aware
about brands Naukri.com, 99acres.com, Jeevansathi.com, but IEIL has very limited
branding as the umbrella company. Hence, at this stage, it is advisable to build
recognition through other means, since the market is saturated with case study
competitions from well-known and preferred organisations. These means are
discussed in the next point. Once the recognition and visibility have been attained,
launching a case study competition to take the engagement to next level would be
successful, have maximum participation and also increase the branding.
It was also not recommended for IEIL to go for live short term projects and campus
ambassadors because neither would they solve the problem of poor understanding of
the product management role, nor would they increase the amount of employer
branding as desired at this stage.
None of the companies which offer the product management role conduct a GD. Most
of the recruiters interviewed did not feel the need to conduct a GD to test candidates
for the product management role because it is different from traditional sales and
marketing profiles offered by companies.
40% of the recruiters wanted to keep the interview process unstructured, despite
having acknowledged the fact that certain important criteria are missed out. The rest
of the recruiters favoured keeping the process very structured and to-the-point since
the role being offered is very niche and important traits must be checked.

3. Campus Hiring Process & Employer Branding on Campus (Web Design):
The project briefs (diploma internship) and job descriptions (final placements) are the
most important influence attracting a NIDian, with work atmosphere and salary on the
second and third positions. Seniors opinions and word of mouth come fourth. The
least important factors are job location, the type of business the company is in and
probability of conversion to a full time job opportunity.
Since NIDians are very busy in the campus and the number of companies organising
design competitions is very less and only large MNCs organise competitions, at this
stage, with limited familiarity about Info Edge on campus, it wouldnt be very
beneficial to do a design competition.
The factors getting maximum weightage include less salary, position being
inconsistent with long term objectives and organisation reputation and familiarity. So,
while it is apparent that salary is ranked 3
rd
by NIDians when accepting a position, it
should also be considered that a salary below the expected rate is sufficient reason for
a candidate to reject an offer.
Key Recommendations
1. Employee Referral Policy:
Only 40% companies have a point of contact in HR team regarding the employee
referral policies. Info Edge does NOT have a POC. 80% people surveyed in Info Edge
consider it very important to have one person to contact to regarding the ERP. Hence,
this MUST be implemented and mentioned in e-mails, the policy etc.
90% companies do not mention restrictions, if any, on the number of bonuses an
employee is entitled to receive. 10% companies do not have any restrictions on the
same. Info Edge does not mention the same. In 66% cases, the referral has been
working full time at Info Edge. This shows that most of the referrals are being hired.
Hence, Info Edge must not introduce any such restrictions to keep referrals coming
in. So, it may either be mentioned explicitly that there are no such restrictions or it
may not be mentioned at all.
0% Info Edge employees surveyed made a referral due to monetary incentive. 24% of
the Info Edge employees are not satisfied with the referral bonus figures. 39% are
neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Based upon benchmarking of bonus amounts in the
Excel sheet, it is observed that bonus amounts given by Info Edge are very much
above the prevailing amounts in the industry. Hence, these may remain unchanged.
A new Employee Referral Policy was also drafted and submitted for implementation.
2. Campus Hiring Process & Employer Branding on campus (Product Management):
Guest Lectures and Workshops are the maximum preferred options (as deduced from
the survey) by students to engage with companies and hence, it would be very
beneficial for IEIL to undertake these. It should also be noted that only 3% of the
2648 respondents have interned in a product development role and also, as was
deduced in the interviews with the recruiters, students do not have a very clear idea of
what a product management role offers and requires. Hence, through these guest
lectures and workshops, the product management role can be brought out very well.
Post the PPT, in the selection stages, it can be safely concluded that having a GD
would not serve the required purpose. This has been concluded based upon the
unanimous opinion of all the recruiters and the fact that NONE of the companies
offering product management roles conduct a GD.
The fact that students understanding of the role being offered is limited, it is very
important to understand the genuine interest and understanding of the candidates.
Hence, to filter candidates before the interview process, it is recommended to give a
short caselet or a case study and ask students to submit 1-2 slides based upon 2 or 3
problems attached with the case. Based upon the quality of submission, it can be
determined if the candidate is genuinely interested and understands the product
management role and hence, can be shortlisted.
Alternatively, students may be asked their answers on 2-3 specific product
development situation-based questions or may be asked to submit a detailed SOP on
why they would want to join as a product manager.
3. Campus Hiring Process & Employer Branding on campus (Web Design):
Since project briefs and JDs are considered as most important factors (highest number
of rank 1), it is very important that the project briefs be shared at the right time. This
brief must be challenging and enticing, but not daunting.
NID and IIM-A collectively organise New Technology Application, Design and
Business Model. The prime objective of this course is to make the students of design
and management work on technology-based projects together. The sponsor is Nokia.
If IEIL sponsors this, it would get visibility among both NIDians as well as students
of IIM-A.
Upon benchmarking, it was found that the stipend offered to interns is above that of
most of the companies and hence, above the average. However, the final CTC offered
is less than most of the companies. This will become reason enough for the current
interns to not accept final offers as well as reason enough for students to not prefer
IEIL over other companies. Hence, the CTC should be revised and be at par with
other companies.