Hiring experts: 60-65 pc interviews to be delayed

“Since the outbreak of COVID-19, companies have been cancelling interviews. We expect 60-65 per cent interviews getting dropped or delayed as there is lockdown in many parts of the country and people are encouraged to stay at home to curtail the spread of the virus,” Amit Vadera, Team- Lease Services Business Head, BFSI and government vertical, said. This will also lead to delay in joining dates if the current situation continues, he said.

Sectors including banking, financial services and insurance, retail, logistics (delivery) where a lot of frontline-hiring takes place are likely to witness this delay, he pointed out. More and more companies will now depend on technology as an alternate channel to continue with the same pace of productivity, he opined. “It will be a big learning for many organisations, who will see this as a medium to improve their productivity,” he added. He said in the short term, this will also impact the overall hiring scenario as many sectors will witness slowdown following the spread of COVID-19, however, it is too early to quantify it.

CIEL HR Services chief executive officer Aditya Narayan Mishra said COVID-19 has emerged as a global challenge and “this is going to push many critical projects to slow track and impact revenues and profitability. As a result, companies will delay their hiring plans”. The results are hard to predict but are certainly disquieting and it will result in a slowdown in hiring, which may be 10-15 per cent in the next quarter across all sectors especially the services industry, he said. “We are already seeing cancellation of personal interviews and putting backfill numbers in abeyance. These are early signs that firms are worried about the revenues and meeting their forecasts,” he noted.