RECRUITMEN

T
and

Cisco’s case study

Hemlata Verma
By:- Jeevan Yadav
Kanika Bhatt
Khushboo Borasi
Mamta Marmat
well,

different

Jobs

require
different

skills
 Recruitment:-

 Recruitment is the process of

searching for prospective
candidates and stimulating
them to apply for the job
It is a positive process because it increases
the selection ratio by attracting a large volume
of applicants for the job
 Purposes
► Increase size of applicant pool at
minimum cost
► Identify & prepare potential job
applicants
► Increase success rate of selection
process by reducing over/under
qualified applicants
► Decrease early turnover of new hires
► Increase individual/organisational
effectiveness
Recruiting Yield Pyramid

50 New hires

100 Offers made (2 : 1)

Candidates interviewed (3 : 2)
150

200 Candidates invited (4 : 3)

1,200 Leads generated (6 : 1)

 Recruitment sources:-

Internal sources:-
• present permanent
• present temporary
employee
employee
• retired
• Dependant of diseased
employee
employee
External sources:-
• Campus • Casual applicants
•
recruitment • Trade
consultancies
• Data banks •unions
public employment
• Similar exchange
organisation
 Advantages of Internal
Recruiting
Trade union can be satisfied
► Better assessment of internal
candidates
► Lower cost
► Motivator for good performance
► Familiarity with organisation
► Improved morale and security
Stability
Cost of employees
of training , induction ,can be of
period insured
adoptability
Can be reduced
 Disadvantages of Internal
Recruiting
► Inability to find appropriate people
► Morale problems
► Political in-fighting
► Need for strong T&D programs
 Advantages of External
Recruiting
► Introduces new ideas and knowledge
► Reduced need for training
► Larger skilled pool available

 UNBIASED
RECRUITMENT
 NEW ENTRIES CAN BE MADE AT LOWER PAY
SCALES
TALENTED CANDIDATES OF SIMILAR ORG CAN
BE BROUGHT IN EASILY
 External
recruitme
nt
May not
Always
be
useful
 Disadvantages of External
Recruiting
► Problems of fit
► Morale problems for internals
► Adjustment period
► Decreased incentive value of
promotions
 Factors affecting recruitment:-

Internal External
factors:- factors:-
company’s pay package • Socio economic factor
• Quality of work • Supply and
demand
• Organizational requirement
• Employment rate
Carrier planning and growth• Political legal
• Company’s factors
government
• Companies product/
size • Information
•
services
Companies growth system
Like employment
• rate
Roll of trade unions exchange
Company’s name and fame
Recruitment technique:-

For internal candidates For external candidates

• promotion •
recommendation
• •s scouting
demotion
• •
transfer advertising
 Recruitment Evaluation
Measuring past recruitment can help predict:
■ Timeliness of recruitment
■ Budget needed
■ Methods that yield greatest number of
best quality candidates
■ Assess performance of recruiters
 Recruitment – The Cisco Way

Our philosophy is very simple – if you get the best people in the industry
to fit into your culture and you motivate them properly,
then you’re going to be an industry leader.’

John Chamber
CEO, Cisco Systems
RECRUITMENT - THE CISCO WAY
INTRODUCTION
The Case:

The case examines various changes brought about by global networking major.
Cisco, in its recruitment policies in the mid-1990s

Background of Cisco:

Cisco was founded in 1984 by a group of computer scientists at Stanford, who

designed an operating software called IOS (Internet Operating System)

In 1985, the company started a customer support site from where customers
could download software over FTP and also upgrade the downloaded software. It
provided technical support to its customers through emails
RECRUITMENT - THE CISCO WAY
INTRODUCTION
Introduction to the case:

In 1995, global networking major, Cisco, found that despite hiring an average of 1,000 people
every three months during the year, the company still had hundreds of openings.

Cisco hired more than 1,000 employees every quarter – around 10 percent of the total jobs
generated through Internet in the Silicon Valley.

The management realized that they had to adopt innovative recruitment measures to get the best
people and remain the leader in the Internet era. Foremost among these was the first of its kind
online recruitment called the ‘Friends program’

In 2001, the company recruited around 40-50% of its employees through ‘Make a friend @
Cisco’ online program and other such initiatives

“Friends is designed to put some grace into the hiring process.”. Cisco recruiters have also began
to target passive job seekers, who were content and successful in their existing jobs.

- Michael McNeal, Director, Corporate Employment

RECRUITMENT - THE CISCO WAY
RECRUITMENT AT CISCO
Cisco’s Vision Statement:
“Attracting, growing and retaining great talent is critical to sustaining Cisco’s competitive
advantage.”

Cisco sources revealed that the company had a policy of attracting the ‘top 10-15 percent’ people
in the networking industry. It believed that if it could get the best people in the industry and retain
them, it would remain the industry leader

Cisco’s recruiting team identified the candidates whom they felt that the company ‘should hire,’
and then figured out ways those potential candidates did their job hunting and designed hiring
processes to attract them to the company.

“The top 10 percent are not typically found in the first round of layoffs from other companies, and
they usually aren’t cruising through the want ads.”

- Barbara Beck, Vice President, Human Resources

RECRUITMENT - THE CISCO WAY
RECRUITMENT AT CISCO
Since the most sought after employees were not accessible, Cisco deviced a strategy to lure
them.

As part of its strategy to attract the best talent, Cisco changed the way it used wanted
advertisements in newspapers. Instead of listing specific job openings, the company featured its
Internet address in its ads and invited prospective candidates to apply.

The company learned to attract happily employed people through focus groups. For example, it
was found that most professionals like to watch movies in their free time, websites on ‘corporate
cartoon Dilbert’ were extremely popular and most professionals hated job hunting.

Cisco linked its website to the Dilbert web page, which registered around 2.5 million hits per day,
mainly from engineers and Internet-savvy managers.
RECRUITMENT - THE CISCO WAY
RECRUITMENT AT CISCO
The focus group’s exercise made Cisco realize that a candidate would approach the company if
he had been informed by a friend about better opportunities at Cisco.

Cisco also reached out to potential applicants through a variety of routes which were unusual in
recruiting. It began frequenting art fairs, beer festivals and certain annual events in which
people from Silicon Valley participated. These places proved to be very ‘fruitful hunting venues’ as
they attracted young achievers from various successful InfoTech companies.

Cisco recruiters mingled with the crowd, collected business cards from prospective
candidates and spoke to them informally about their careers. The Cisco employees then called
the prospects to inform them in their own words about life at the company.

By 1999, about one third of new recruitments were made through the Friends program,
Cisco launched a tool called Profiler on the employment page of its website to accelerate and
standardize online resume submission.
RECRUITMENT - THE CISCO WAY
RECRUITMENT AT CISCO
To avoid applicants from being caught by their current employers while using Profiler, Cisco
designed each screen with an escape button that opened web page about gift suggestions for co-
workers.

To speed up the hiring process, Cisco hired in-house headhunters to identify qualified candidates
for managers.

Cisco also encouraged internal referrals for recruitment through a program called ‘Amazing
People.’ This system allowed Cisco employees to refer their friends, acquaintances for
positions in Cisco. Employees were given bonus if the company hired the person they referred.

Every new recruit was assigned a ‘buddy’ who clarified all doubts and answered questions about
Cisco and work in general.
 strengths:-
•Use of revolutionary technique that is internet
Inexpensive method which covers large
volume
•Recruiting team’s effort to identify and study job
hunting Style of potential candidates

dvertising website at cyberspace and linking it to oth

Important websites

•Formation of focus groups for passive job seekers

 Weaknesses:-
 Factors like higher salary, incentives etc
which may lure passive job seeker
havn’t been included
nternal refferals may cause conflicts and may
divert employees attaintion to get
refering
bonus for

cisco target top level employees, excessive recruitm

Will be useless and unfocused
 Opportunity:-

► Unusual but fruitful

recruitment techniques like
art fairs, beer festivals and
certain annual events etc are
frequently done; where
potential candidates can be
easily contacted and
 Threats:-

►Other competitive firms

can soon follow similar
recruitment techniques
with additional lucrative
features like higher pay
scales , better working
atmosphere etc
 Conclusion:-
According to our swot analysis we would like to
conclude
That cisco’s recruitment technique is very
beneficial, cost effective and innovative but it
seems to be a bit undirectional as its objective is
to hire top networking people but its not
significantly fulfilled they have just made the
recruitment technique smooth and easy but not
attractive specially for passive job seekers