Cisco sources revealed that the company had a policy of attracting the ‘top 10-15%’ 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. According to Cisco’s vision statement, “Attracting, growing and retaining great talent is critical to sustaining Cisco’s competitive advantage.” Thus, effective recruitment was used as a powerful strategic weapon by the company. The company began to use revolutionary techniques like the ‘build-the-buzz’ strategy, which was centered on the primary market for its products, i.e. the Internet. Cisco’s recruiting team identified the candidates whom they felt the company ‘should hire,’ and then figured out the way those potential candidates did their job hunting and designed hiring processes to attract them to the company. Cisco recruiters targeted even passive job seekers – people who were happy and successful in their current jobs. Barbara Beck (Beck), Vice President, Human Resources said, “The top 10% are not typically found in the first round of layoffs from other companies, and they usually aren’t cruising through the want ads.” Since the most sought after employees were not accessible, Cisco devised 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. This move helped Cisco to direct all job seekers to its website where it could inexpensively post hundreds of openings and provide information regarding them. It also advertised its website in cyberspace to reach candidates who surfed the net from around the world. The company was thus able to monitor and measure its recruiting programs through the number of visits to its site. Since most people visited Cisco’s website from their jobs, the company could identify their place of work. Cisco worked towards removing some of the frustration associated with applying for jobs. The company learned to attract happily employed people through focus groups. 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. This led to the launch of the friends program in April 1996. 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. Cisco advertised the friends program in movie theaters in San Jose and received around 100 to 150 applications each week. By 1997, 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. The Profiler asked applicants to provide educational and employment information through appropriate selections from pull-down menus. The Profiler also asked a few questions regarding the applicant’s background. (Peak usage of Cisco’s employment page was between 10 am and 3 pm). To avoid applicants from being caught by their current employers while using Profiler, Cisco designed each screen with an escape button that opened webpage about gift suggestions for co- workers. Cisco also found that applicants and recruiters were not totally comfortable with the time-consuming recruiting process. 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 within Cisco. The system kept track of referrals, resumes and related information and forwarded them to Cisco’s recruiters and hiring managers around the world. Employees were given a bonus if the company hired the person they referred. After streamlining its recruitment policies, Cisco conducted an employee survey to find out how the new recruits felt on their first day at work. This exercise stemmed from the company’s belief that new employees typically treated the first day as ‘the most important eight hours in the world.’ The survey showed that some new recruits felt lost on their first day – their phones did not work, their computers had no software and if it did they had no idea how to use it. It was also found that most of the employees did not get their email addresses for two weeks. To address the above problems, Cisco launched Fast Start, an employee-orientation initiative. Cisco installed computer software, which tracked the hiring process and alerted the team about the new recruit’s arrival. As a result, every new recruit started with a fully functional workspace and a whole day of training in desktop tools. According to company sources, Fast Start not only eliminated all problems but it also enabled new recruits to know about ‘life inside the company.’ Every new recruit was assigned a ‘buddy’ who clarified all doubts and answered questions about Cisco and work in general. New recruits also had a two-day course called the ‘Cisco Business Essentials,’ which covered company’s history, its networking market and business units. The managers of the new recruits received an automatically generated email two weeks after their new recruits’ arrival. It reminded managers to review their departmental initiatives and personal goals. The above initiatives enabled the new recruits to get adjusted to the work environment fast.

1. ‘The changing dynamics of the global infotech industry necessitated Cisco’s decision to change its recruitment process.’ Comment on the above statement highlighting the company’s decision to adopt innovative recruitment methods. 2. The ‘Friends,’ ‘Amazing People’ and ‘Profiler’ initiatives were designed to integrate the Internet effectively with Cisco’s recruitment philosophy to attract the best talent in the industry. Analyze the various recruitment strategies adopted by Cisco.