Companies shifting to virtual campus placements this season: Mercer/Mettl Report

Organizations that aim to hire this season are increasingly shifting to virtual campus placements as they face significant challenges with their traditional campus hiring schedules due to COVID-19, according to a recently launched report by Mercer/Mettl.

Orgzations that aim to hire this season are increasingly shifting to virtual campus placements as they face significant challenges with their traditional campus hiring schedules due to COVID-19, according to a recently launched report by Mercer/Mettl.

With COVID-19 disrupting regular campus hiring drives this season, virtual platforms are serving as imperative solutions to conduct campus placements while maintaining social distancing protocols.

The report titled 'Campus Hiring 2020: Challenges, Trends, and Best Practices' gauges the challenges with the traditional campus placements and the solutions orgzations are employing to overcome the disruption and continue with their hiring schedules.

It recorded responses from over 400 campus recruiters across sectors, including IT, BFSI & trading, manufacturing, healthcare, government, construction, entertainment & mass media, and retail.

"Virtual campus hiring solutions are a great way for orgzations to keep up with the hiring momentum and maintain their business sustainability in these challenging times. Campus establishments, too, are exploring ways to make the campus placements smooth for their students. These new-age solutions ensure hiring from campuses are neither delayed nor fraught with contagion risks while maintaining the credibility of the processes," said Siddhartha Gupta, CEO, Mercer/Mettl on this industry development.

The two significant challenges that orgzations face with their traditional campus drives are engaging the students before the placements and coordinating with multiple campuses, the report reveals.

Engaging students by building connections and brand visibility before placements is a challenge for over 55 per cent of orgzations, as an increasing number of students today want to work with orgzations that align with their visions and ambitions.

Additionally, visiting multiple campuses physically and conducting screening assessments of students and interviewing them in the physical setting is another major challenge for compes.

About 84 per cent of orgzations said booking interview venues and slotting a convenient time without a clash with parallel hiring drives is a major pain point for them.

The report further analyzes the use of technology by compes to overcome these challenges and continue with their hiring plans and business as usual.

A majority of the institutions surveyed for the report showed interest in innovative new-age virtual tools such as hackathons, ideathons, case study simulators, and online contests for better pre-placement engagement with the students.

Regarding screening and assessing students, orgzations are increasingly using remote proctored screening assessments that allow them to screen the candidates remotely, eliminating concerns related to malpractices.

22 per cent of the surveyed compes point to cheating prevention and impersonation as their most pressing screening challenge in maintaining the credibility and authenticity of their campus drives.

Moreover, compes are adopting virtual interviews for their campus placements this season to avoid conducting them in a physical setting. Students can appear for such virtual interviews from anywhere, anytime.

Campus recruiters, too, can easily interview the candidates virtually, in an efficient and hassle-free manner. Orgzations leveraging such modern-age and innovative tools enjoy an onboarding rate as high as 76 per cent, the report states.

The report attempts to understand the workings of traditional campus hiring processes in the past, besides assessing how orgzations can change their campus hiring strategy to overcome unforeseen disruptions, such as COVID-19.

It further divulges how campus placements can be efficiently shifted online, using technology and virtual hiring solutions, making standard procedures resilient to future disruptions.

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( With inputs from ANI )