Talent Specialist Shreya Kalal reveals how putting data first while recruiting has helped her close pivotal job openings at Meesho fastly and efficiently
How do you find the right candidate for any role? Well, through data of course! Keeping a close tab on the hiring process is the best way to optimise the candidate pipeline and land on the most relevant platforms for sourcing candidates as well. Talent Specialist Shreya Kalal learnt all about the relevance of data in recruitment after joining Meesho in early 2020.
In the year and a half that Shreya has worked at Meesho, she, (an MBA in HR Management) has found her niche in recruitment and has been combining her strength of sourcing with Meesho’s data-driven process to find the right candidates for various Business Units (BUs).. As someone who started out in this career thinking data analysis doesn’t have any place in HR, she is now a stickler for process and data-driven hiring practices. In fact, she credits her team at Meesho for teaching her the benefits of data analysis in HR.
Read on to learn more about Shreya’s data-driven, efficiency-focused life at Meesho:
I joined Meesho in early 2020 as a Talent Acquisition Specialist. Initially, I hired for Business Development and Category Associate Manager roles and other junior positions but then moved on to recruiting Business Analysts and a few other verticals including the product team. Within 10 months I was able to achieve my targets and made 15–20 offers to candidates who were fit for Meesho’s ecosystem.
From there on, my growth journey at Meesho really started and I got the opportunity to hire for various roles under the Marketing BU such as SEO managers, marketing managers and more. So you could say that in my one year and a few months at Meesho I have managed to work with most stakeholders across the company and helped them with their hiring needs.
Making Sense of Numbers
I credit a lot of my success at Meesho to our numbers-driven approach. Coming from a consultancy background, I was not used to this practice before. In fact, I got a placement opportunity with the human resource solutions consultancy Wenger & Watson soon after I graduated with an MBA in HR and Marketing. While I got to work with multitudes of clients, and got the exposure that helped strengthen my sourcing techniques, a structured, data-driven approach was a foreign concept to me at the time.
Since joining Meesho, analysing data became a part and parcel of my recruitment process. In terms of HR practices and processes at Meesho, we have made several big jumps — from filling up sheets manually to now actively using data and analytics to make informed decisions regarding recruitment. Meesho’s TA team as a whole has come a long way. Learning to change my working style accordingly has been a great blessing.
Now I look at numbers regularly and review conversion ratios with hiring managers from different business units. This also includes calculating and discussing the percentage of our progress, the health of resumes we share with the hiring managers, and the hiring time taken.
The Hiring Cycle
The hiring process at Meesho begins when the hiring manager fills out a Manpower Requisition Form (MRF), this is where details such as no of positions to be filed, the budget, the kind of candidates we are looking for and more are included. This is then followed by a call with the hiring manager where we try to understand the role, its requirements and how it is connected to the business unit.
The next step involves sourcing — mapping to understand the market, and the kind of talent out there. This is then followed up by posting the job opening on various professional platforms and job portals. Once the resumes start coming in, they are shortlisted for several rounds of interviews and assignments and a bar raiser round.
Once this is done, we start getting the resume, we start sending the CVs, we get shortlisting and scheduling, before the final shortlist comes in. We collect the documents prior to the final rounds to understand their expectations and we verify their documents to rule out any budget issues at the last stage.
Once the candidate gets through the final round, the offer negotiations begin. Post this, we send the profile for approval with all the necessary documents, including offer letters that they may have received from other companies as well. This helps us during the post-hiring audit, where recruiters are liable to justify the hikes we offer.
After that, we roll out the offers to them, post approval from the hiring manager and the TA head. But, our job is not over just because the offer has been accepted. We then continue to keep in touch with the candidate and check in on them at least once a week. We even send them goodies like books and chocolates. Only after they join the Meesho fold, and we hear from the HM and the candidate themself that they have hit the ground running that we can consider the hiring a success.
Speed, ownership, and employee referrals
Despite the long process, we are able to hire the right candidates at a fast pace at Meesho because one of our core values is Speed Over Perfection. The entire company works in tandem when a work needs to get done, and so when a hiring is involved every single stakeholder prioritises it to wrap it up on time. After all, it is a Meesho Employee Value Proposition (EVP) pillar to hire exceptional talent with high autonomy.
Another company core value that I truly abide by is Taking Ownership. I try to solve any roadblocks quickly and efficiently before I turn to my manager. Of course, Meesho managers are such that work is always collaborative, so they only step in when they know we are out of our depth. Otherwise, they trust us to finish the job handed over to us.
And of course, I consider employee referrals a great boon. I have closed many prominent positions in the company through this system. No one knows Meesho better than Meeshoites, and if they are recommending someone to get someone aboard the Meesho rocketship, you know it’s at least worth a conversation, and oftentimes, it’s worth a lot more.
The road ahead
Journey at Meesho so far has certainly been an eventful one, and one that has involved a lot of upskilling. I now aim to further optimise my data analysis skills, and get a hang of hiring for more senior roles. And, what better place to achieve all these goals than Meesho, the workplace that has encouraged me to always trust the numbers and myself.
Sarath KV is fully committed to the best of the best candidates for Meesho
Redabothu Lavanya is always thinking on her toes when it comes to customer escalations
Want to join Meesho’s data-driven HR team and help us find the right candidates that will help make 100 million small businesses become successful online? Click here.
