The companies preferred the traditional pencil-and-paper test for all these years
Learning begins at home. But, while Indian IT companies were busy providing software solutions for the rest of the world, they could not see beyond the traditional route when it came to hiring wannabe techies.
For all these years, IT majors – like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro Technologies, Cognizant Technology Solutions and HCL Technologies – have been using the pencil-and-paper test for campus recruitments.
Now, they have started looking beyond tradition to promote an automated platform for pre-employment screening tests online. “These tests provide a variety of efficiencies, helps in saving time and money in comparison to the traditional pencil-and-paper route and companies are finding it more apt ,” said an industry source. “The assessment capabilities can be used to even size up the existing workforce for the purposes of team-building,” he added.
While TCS administers the tests on their own, HCL is working in partnership with a Gurgaon-based company, Aspiring Minds. When contacted, HCL however declined to comment.
Wipro Technologies and Cognizant Technology Solutions on the other hand have lined up with a Bangalore-based testing company — MeritTrac Services.
Industry insiders said Cognizant Technology Solutions will use the online automated platform for the first time to recruit techies during the next hiring cycle. Wipro Technologies, however, opened its account this January by hiring freshers using the online test.
“Benefits like student convenience, efficiencies of the process and credibility of the entire testing process is leading more and more companies to go for online testing. These companies have been using paper-pencil test for over a decade,” said Madan Padaki, co-founder and CEO, MeritTrac Services.
Wipro, in collaboration with MeritTrac, conducts a national-level online common entrance test for admissions to Wipro Academy of Software Excellence (WASE). The test is conducted for admissions to its Master of Science program, WASE, which is an off-campus ‘earn while you learn’ programme in collaboration with BITS, Pilani.
“In recent years, the response and interest in our WASE program has gone up tremendously due to relevance and need for such a programme in our country. An online test helps in addressing this huge turnout of candidate along with helping us cover the length and breadth of the country. We covered more than 50,000 graduates during the last fiscal through online assessments,” said Pradeep Bahirwani, vice president – talent acquisition, Wipro.
WASE is a four-year, eight-semester course where the candidates train with Wipro and work on live projects on weekdays while attending classes over the weekends.
The first seven semesters comprise course work and in the eighth semester students work on their dissertations. At the end of the four years, candidates get an MS degree from BITS, Pilani — an equivalent to their full-time two year MS degree programme. Wipro bears the entire course fee and pays the WASE candidates a stipend for the duration of the course.
Wipro said the switch from pencil-and-paper test to online assessment has helped the company in reducing its assessment cost by 36 per cent. “Traditional methodology of paper-pencil testing involves higher costs, strain on green resources, dependency on human intervention, delay in assessment and results, higher operational costs, lesser coverage and it is inflexible for both the company as well as the candidate,” said Bahirwani.
Since the tests are done in an engineering/graduate campus – a computer lab – the infrastructure costs are absorbed by the campus. The only additional cost is the technology infrastructure (server, hosting, application licensing) costs. These are also offset by cost reductions that accrue due to printing costs and logistics costs of shipping the paper, among others.
“Accuracy, less dependency on human resources for evaluation, almost immediate assessment and higher operational costs has helped many companies move from the traditional testing methodology to a modern one. In fact, its rather surprising why IT companies did not think of it earlier,” said a Mumbai-based IT analyst.
While IT companies internationally, have been recruiting manpower using an online testing model for a while, the volumes are not as high as those by Indian IT companies. Industry insiders said the entire hiring process in the country – so far been traditionally inclined – has begun seeing more of technology play. Video interviews will be the next level of recruitment.
