Recruitment Metrics at TQR Solutions

Riya, the HR manager of TQR Solutions Limited (TQR), was taking stock of the recent
recruitment drive of the company along with her team. The company had recruited 60
candidates from external as well as internal sources. Riya and her team had to work out the
hiring costs and present this to the management.
TQR, a leading private sector banking and financial services company with its headquarter in
Mumbai, Indi, was planning to recruit suitable employees as it had witnessed a high employee
turnover rate in the past few months. The company was also planning to expand its operations
in the southern zone of the country, which would require 50 new employees in addition to 10
internal hires for lower-level positions. The HR Manager of the firm along with her team
evaluated different sources of online job posting such as LinkedIn, Monster.com,
CareerBuider, and Ladders and online ads in addition to the print ads and participation in career
fairs.
LinkedIn, being one of the most popular online tools for recruitment, was charging as much as
Rs. 50,000 for a monthly job posting and a quarterly charge of Rs. 30,000 for resume access.
Monster, was quoting Rs. 30,000 for a monthly job posting and 8,000 per month for resume
access. CareerBuilder and Ladders, were relatively more reasonable, and were charging
Rs.20,000 each for the monthly job posting and Rs. 15,000 each for an annual subscription to
access the resumes. Similarly, participation in a career fair would cost Rs. 25,000, and
advertisement, both online and print would lead to a further expenditure of Rs.50,000.
However, the internal advertisement cost such as ads on notice boards, intranet of the company
and interdepartmental job postings on Internet was as nominal as Rs. 10,000. The HR team
finally decided to opt for Monster.com due to its huge resume database and popularity. In
addition to this, the company also placed a print ad in a leading newspaper.
Riya also approached one of the leading employment agencies to generate job applications
from potential recruits. The agency personnel gave an estimation of Rs. 50,000 for generating
a request number of 100 applications for different job positions specified by her. Riya was
confident of getting another 100 applications through the older sources being considered by
the company. Ravi, the managing director of TQR, had agreed to Riya’s proposal to announce
an external referral bonus of Rs. 5000 and internal referral bonus of Rs 2,000 per hire.
In addition to the above expenditure, the management of TQR prepared a list of other estimated
cost such as salary, benefits and overhead cost for the staff and support staff to meet the
manager and discuss about the sourcing, work with the agency and media, screening the
applicants, calling the applicants interviews, interviewing the candidates and checking
references, scheduling the interview with the manager after reviewing the candidates and
confirming the offers. Similarly, salary and benefits had to be paid to the senior officials
(managers) for their time spent on time management interviewing the candidates and making
hiring decision.
Though it was clearly stated by Riya that disqualified candidates would spend only one day for
their interview and declaration of results and the selected candidates would spend two days for
interview and other related documentation and formalities, the staffing team consisting of 12
members (5 staff, 3 managers, 3 support staff) eventually required five days’ time to screen
and interview 150 external applicants who turned up for the interview and another one day to
interview and select the internal candidates. Finally, at the end of the recruitment drive, 50
candidates were hired from external sources and 10 candidates were sourced internally through
transfer and promotions.
Once the job applicant got selected in the interview, it was mandatory policy at TQR for the
new external hires to undergo a medical examination and get their records verified. In this
regard, TQR had outsourced such activities to various third-party agencies and had to incur a
cost of Rs. 600 per candidate on medical examination and Rs 500 per candidate on employment
and record verification. Additionally, the company has a policy to reimburse the travel cost for
each external recruited candidate to appear for the interview if they were selected for the job.
On an average, a cost of Rs 2,000 was incurred by the selected candidate for travel to appear
for the interview.
With regard to the internal candidates, they were not paid any travel and lodging expenses since
the company policy was to recruit internal hires through telephonic interviews and video
conferencing. However, candidates accepting transfer were provided with relocation expenses.
The average relocation cost, to be paid by the employer, was calculated at Rs 15,000per
transferred employee. Four of the internally recruited candidates were transferred from their
current location. However, the company decided not to reimburse the relocation cost for the
external hires. The company also decided to keep Rs 20,000 aside to meet the other
miscellaneous joining expenditure against security checks, opening a new employee file and
making the employment bond for the total number of new hires.
Once all the hiring decisions were made, the HR team headed by Riya, gathered to review the
total cost incurred by the company on this recruitment exercise. It was known to them that the
salary and benefits of HR staff was Rs 200 per hour for 8 working hours a day and for the
managers it was Rs. 600 per hour for 8 working hours a day. Th salary and benefit for the
support staff was Rs 50 per hour for 8 working hours a day and they would be paid an overhead
charge of 10% on their daily wage in lieu of helping the HR team throughout the 6 days of the
recruitment process. The team also noted that out of 50 external hires, 18 were hired through
referrals where as out of 10 internal hires, 5 were hired through referrals. The HR team had to
now calculate and report the entire cost so that the finance department could settle the accounts.
Additionally, Riya was required to submit a report to the managing director presenting the
external cost per hire, internal cost per hire and total cost per hire.