With 1.4 billion people, India has found its place as the largest recruitment industry. How big is the recruitment industry in India? As per the report shared by the Executive Recruiters Association and Ernst & Young, India’s recruitment industry market size is growing at a cumulative rate of 21% every year in its recruitment field with a value of approximately Rs 22800 Crore. In 2022, India’s average age stands at 28.7 years, with more than 50% of the population below the age of 25, and the percentage of people below the age of 35 is over 60%. With such demographics, the Indian market size in terms of recruitment has seen drastic growth. With high opportunity prospects, our country has also faced quite a few challenges. Comparing the recruitment industry trends for 2021 and 2022, India’s recruitment industry has shifted its focus from planning and forecasting to a much more distinct approach to focus on ‘who to hire’ from ‘what to hire’.

India- The Billion-dollar Recruitment Industry: The success mantra

Changing the old patterns:

With the growing recruitment industry, India has witnessed a more organized pattern of hiring skilled manpower. The most important change that was necessary for India was to change the conventional way of hiring people. Instead of in-house recruitment, the increased focus on recruitment companies proved to be efficient both in terms of time and skilled manpower selection. Do you know how many recruiters are there in India? There are more than 25000 such recruiting companies in India.

Increased transparency and efficiency:

With the increased importance of recruitment companies, the hiring process has become transparent and smooth for both the applicants and companies. Those looking for a job have a one-stop option to get access to all the vacant suitable positions in various companies by visiting a recruitment agency. On the other hand, the recruitment agency can provide the companies with complete information about the candidate along with previous background checks, thus contributing to the healthy growth of the economy.

Increased trust in the recruitment industry:

Those looking for a job bestow their faith in the recruitment companies hoping to get the right job as well as get the necessary guidance regarding their career choices. Thus, the efficiency of the recruitment companies in providing easy access to the requisite information and their committed support till the final stage of hiring has helped the job-seekers boost their confidence and secure their faith in this growing billion-dollar industry.

India’s Recruitment Trend 2022: Post-Pandemic Analysis

The question is – Is recruitment a growing industry? After the pandemic, India’s recruitment pattern has made a huge shift. Recruitment industry in India 2022 statistics show that almost all companies have started adopting modern recruitment tools. There has been more than two-thirds growth in the companies after adopting the remote working pattern. There has been increased demand for freelancers by the companies as well. As the different recruitment ways have been liberalized, the demand for jobs has also seen a spike post-pandemic. Adopting the data-driven strategy has shown a lot of importance in the hiring process. In today’s technology-driven world, everything revolves around data. The increased focus on the data has helped the recruitment industry select the right job for the right candidate.

Recruitment practices in India such as emphasis on social media recruitment along with easy documentation has helped change the recruitment scenario in India. Almost 90% of job-seekers remain online on various social media platforms post-pandemic, thus it becomes easy for recruitment companies to follow up with the right candidates from these platforms. As compared to the pre-covid scenario, It has narrowed down the talent shortage gaps, fastened up the hiring process, and also decreased the cost per hire rate by almost three-fourths.

At present, the emphasis is more on safety than work. Applicants choose to opt for remote working positions more compared to on-site positions. The work-from-home culture has also proven to be cost-effective and increased the satisfaction level of the employees. The online hiring process adopted by the recruitment companies has largely contributed to increasing the scope of opportunities for job-seekers.

Challenges in India’s Recruitment Sector

If we look into the recruitment industry overview in India, no doubt, there have been a lot of visible improvements in the employment ratio of the country, but India at present has the highest number of people in the working age group. Thus, the rate at which the job-seekers apply for a position is very high and it becomes a daunting task for the hiring companies to look for the best candidate out of the lot. Those looking for a job, apply for a number of posts, and the recruitment industry gets a pool of resumes to choose from. There is a need to bring in some changes to bring smoothness to the process. Moreover, the overlapping of competency-based hiring and experienced-based hiring has also become challenging. Adoption of Applicant Tracking Systems by small scale companies and startups along with economical job portals is one of the answers to this challenge. Job Giffy (India’s First Job Search Support Portal with In Build Resume Builder, ATS, 100+ Automated JDs, and much more) plays a massive role in bringing the hiring cost of employers down and providing a world-class job& candidate search support portal at an economical and phenomenal value.

The Way Forward

After the pandemic, the remote working culture is becoming a future. To make the recruiting in India efficient, more focus should be given to filling up the loopholes and strategizing a standard hiring process that can be the basis of hiring in all sectors. A standard curriculum vitae format should be introduced. More emphasis should be given to HR training. Apart from virtual interview chat sessions, and sample submission, there must be other means or tools that can help effectively assess if a candidate is a good fit for the organization. Solving these problems will bring in efficiency in the recruitment practices in India HRM sector and will ensure that no deserving candidates miss out on their opportunity as well as the employee-seeking companies get the right manpower for their organizational growth.