How India’s Leading Fintech Cut Frontline Hiring TATs and Doubled Their Workforce

Background 

In February 2024, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed restrictions on Paytm, creating a significant opportunity for other leading fintech players to capture market share rapidly. To seize this moment, one of India’s major fintech companies aimed to scale its frontline workforce quickly and efficiently.

The task was to double the number of Field Sales Executives that were hired to do various market operations like QR Code placement, EDI POS Machine selling and lending product sales. This was a huge challenge as the existing hiring process was highly inefficient.

Existing Hiring Process 

The company’s hiring process relied on multiple recruitment vendors who directed candidates to various locations across India. Candidates were required to meet and interview with the company's Territory Sales Managers (TSMs). Vendors filled out Candidate Application Forms (CAFs) to enter their candidates into the hiring funnel and line them up for interview.

However, this manual process presented several challenges:

1. Complexity and Confusion: The involvement of multiple recruitment vendors created a fragmented and inconsistent system, leading to miscommunication and poor coordination between vendors and the company’s teams. The lack of a standardized system further complicated synchronization between vendors and internal stakeholders.

2. High Attrition Rates: Attrition rates within the first two months stood at a staggering 70%, severely impacting workforce stability. A lack of structured onboarding and follow-up processes left candidates feeling disengaged, contributing to early drop-offs. High turnover also placed additional strain on recruitment efforts and resources.

3. Lack of Tracking and Records: The absence of a centralized tracking system led to disorganized and inconsistent data management, making it nearly impossible to monitor candidates’ progress across hiring stages. Important data points like attendance, interview outcomes, and feedback were often lost, hindering the ability to address inefficiencies.

4. Frequent Drop-offs: Frequent drop-offs were another significant challenge. Candidates often failed to show up due to poor communication or scheduling conflicts, while TSMs were frequently unavailable to meet candidates, resulting in wasted efforts

Goals

To address these challenges, the company set the following objectives:

1. Double the Volume of Frontline Hires Within a Short Period: With Paytm’s operational challenges creating a prime opportunity, the fintech player aimed to rapidly expand its frontline workforce to capture market share. This required scaling up hiring efforts while maintaining quality.
2. Significantly Reduce Time-to-Hire (TAT): Speed was critical to stay ahead in the competitive market. Reducing the time it took to source, interview, and onboard candidates became a top priority.
3. Establish a Centralized System of Record for Seamless Collaboration: The manual processes led to fragmented data and communication gaps among recruitment vendors, the central operations team, and TSMs. A unified platform was necessary to streamline operations and ensure transparency.
4. Reduce Attrition and Improve Workforce Productivity: High attrition rates were undermining productivity and increasing recruitment costs. A robust system to engage and retain candidates was essential for building a stable workforce.

Hunar’s Solution 

To tackle these issues, Hunar.ai implemented its technology-driven hiring platform, serving as a centralized system to streamline the process for all stakeholders:

1. One Platform across the ecosystem: Hunar’s platform became the single source of truth for hiring operations, enabling end-to-end tracking of candidates. From sourcing and selection to joining and attrition management, every stage was seamlessly managed through the platform. This eliminated the chaos of manual processes and provided real-time visibility into recruitment progress.
2. Stakeholder Alignment: The platform connected the key stakeholder groups:some text
   • Recruitment Vendors: Allowed vendors to input candidate details, track application statuses, and communicate directly with the central team.
   • Central Operations Team: Provided an overview of the entire hiring pipeline, enabling better decision-making and bottleneck resolution.
   • Business Teams (TSMs): Equipped TSMs with real-time updates on candidate schedules, reducing missed appointments and improving overall coordination.
   • Payroll vendors: They needed real time updates on which candidate’s documents to collect.‍
3. Process Optimization: The system offered real-time visibility into candidate progress at different stages. Automated notifications and centralized dashboards ensured that all stakeholders stayed informed, enabling swift action to address bottlenecks. This approach significantly reduced drop-offs caused by no-shows and scheduling conflicts.
   

Results 

By leveraging Hunar.ai’s technology, the fintech company achieved remarkable outcomes:

1. Improved Convenience: Streamlined processes ensured better collaboration among stakeholders. Recruitment vendors, the central operations team, and TSMs could now work in sync through a unified platform.
2. Faster Turnaround Times (TAT): The centralized system minimized delays by automating manual processes and enabling real-time tracking, thereby accelerating the hiring timeline by reducing the source to selection hiring turn around time by over 90%.‍
3. Lower Drop-offs: Enhanced tracking and consistent follow-ups significantly reduced candidate and TSM no-shows. This improved the overall conversion rate from application to joining.‍
4. Reduced Attrition: A structured and transparent hiring process built trust with candidates, leading to higher engagement and retention rates. The two-month attrition rate saw a significant decline from 70% to 25%, boosting workforce stability and productivity.