New Delhi, India - Strap: Walmart, Flipkart, Juspay, Amazon, and Intellect are a few names that have very well adapted to the changing recruitment landscape and saved time and resources.

People sometimes take change negatively. They fear change because they fear the unknown. However, when the winds of change blow, a few manage to build windmills and come out on top. Talking of one such change is the rise in the popularity of hiring challenges among recruiters.

Having been in the recruiting landscape for more than a decade now, I have seen waxes and wanes in the hiring methods from year to year. However, hiring challenges have set a strong foothold, whereas traditional methods have taken a backseat. 

I remember just two most prominent B-School hiring competitions going back in time - one from HUL and the other from Mahindra. Students fancied them because they offered direct interview opportunities as rewards. Such was the scenario a decade back. 

But with time, other companies (including new-age companies, startups, and established firms) have also climbed the charts. This is because they accepted and adjusted to the change. Among the best examples is Walmart Global Tech India, Flipkart, Juspay, Amazon, and Intellect, among others. 

This is what they did -

They all played smart and conducted hiring challenges. Benefits?

• They tapped the earlier unreachable talent by attracting registrations as high as 1,37,000+ from a single campaign. 
• Companies like Intellect and Walmart hired over 302 and 165+ students in fewer resources and time. Others like Juspay rolled out 2610+ PPIs.
• They built a strong employer brand through a continuous social media presence. One can look up to the Tata Imagination Challenge, a hiring challenge by Tata.
• They tested the candidate's skills accurately and fairly without a hint of bias.
• They saved time and money by performing their engagement activities on a single platform and accessing a large pool of talent.

Whether new-age or established, hiring challenges are for everyone

Here are some examples where companies (irrespective of their size) decided to leave behind the age-old pattern of hiring and gave this new and effective trend a shot.

Walmart met the global gender mandate with CodeHers

Walmart Global Tech India was tasked with addressing a specific issue - achieving the global gender mandate. Therefore, they adopted a unique approach by designing a hiring hackathon for female developers with this goal in mind.

Last year, they employed 165 female coders from 51,053 girl registrations across all engineering institutions via their coding challenge, CodeHers. So they ended up jumping to 56% share of female workers from 35% in a shorter period of time without any hassle.

In short, they got access to coders from across the country on a single platform. The company also profited from free social media promotion to keep prospective candidates in the loop and provide insight into its employer brand.

Flipkart closed 33% of its B-School hiring through different campus challenges

Flipkart has been running successful hiring competitions for a good time now. This year, the company decided to step out of the status quo by opening the competition PAN India across all B-Schools. They received around 39,272 registrations in the fifth season of Flipkart WiRED; the company hired 58 MBA students. To sum up, they hired 166 candidates through different campus challenges!

Apart from saving time and money, they garnered ideas and solutions to their real-world business problems catering to different sectors, including Business, Supply Chain, and HR, through the hiring challenge.

With 302 hires, Intellect has set an example for many

Intellect connected with a large potential reservoir in a seemingly shorter period through their global hackathon. They attracted perfect-fit candidates and hired 302 students with lesser financial resources. 

The point worth noting is that it does not matter whether you are a new-age company or a decade-established company, or whether you offer a fat-paying cheque or not; you can always interact with a larger audience. Because above all, the more people know about you and your culture, the more the chance of attracting the right talent.

26,693 registrations, 100+ hires, and Ather Energy nailed it in a single campaign

Ather Energy is another new-age company that understood the importance of recruiting students through hiring challenges. It all started with the company visiting around 45 colleges individually; in no time, they realized conducting CRAZE-A-THON: Ather Hiring Challenge on Unstop.

The best part was offering a fair playing ground to all the interested candidates without any preference for an IIT tag, which attracted the masses and helped them hire 100+ candidates.

Juspay became students' favorite by rolling out 2610+ PPOs

To date, Juspay has already conducted two hiring hackathons and is up and running with its third season of Juspay Developers Hiring Challenge. It has definitely won the hearts and minds of developers by opening its door to all engineering students and working professionals.

They eliminated bias and worked on corporate diversity by inviting people from diverse backgrounds. As a result, the company met all its objectives with lesser resources and saved a massive amount of time.

If you have read this far, one thing is for sure - you want to save resources and time, too, just like these firms did. It might be intimidating at first to change your recruitment style, but these examples say volumes about the effectiveness of hiring challenges.

They can't all be wrong. Give it a thought.

Happy hiring!

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