Case Study · Employer Branding · Recruitment Marketing
HGS was over-reliant on expensive consultants and offline hiring. I built an end-to-end digital recruitment marketing engine — reducing cost-per-hire from ₹15,000 to ₹5,000, improving campaign ROI by 80%, and growing organic traffic 70%.
67%
Cost-per-hire reduction
80%
Campaign ROI improvement
70%
Organic traffic growth
125+
Keywords ranked #1–3
Client overview
About HGS
Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) is one of India's largest BPO and business process management companies, with operations across 10+ countries. With a large workforce and continuous hiring needs across roles, talent acquisition is core to business continuity.
The engagement
I was I was brought in to transform HGS's recruitment marketing from a traditional, consultant-dependent model to a scalable, data-driven digital acquisition system — reducing hiring costs while improving candidate quality and pipeline velocity.
Challenges I was hired to solve
Over-dependence on consultants
Majority of hiring was routed through third-party recruitment consultants at ₹15,000+ per hire, creating high cost and low ownership of the talent pipeline.
Offline-first hiring methodology
Walk-in drives, print ads, and job fairs were the primary sourcing channels — limiting reach, scalability, and data trackability significantly.
High cost-per-hire with no benchmark
No digital attribution meant the true cost-per-hire was unknown. Consultant fees dominated the budget without clear ROI visibility or channel comparison.
No CRM or ATS data integration
Candidate data lived in silos. No connection between marketing campaigns and the internal ATS meant zero feedback loop for optimising spend or targeting.
Poor organic search presence
The careers website had no SEO strategy. Target job-seeker keywords were unranked, bounce rates were at 70%, and organic candidate traffic was negligible.
No campaign performance visibility
No tracking, no conversion goals, no performance dashboard. Marketing spend had no measurable link to actual hires or interview-to-offer ratios.
Before vs. after — state of hiring
Execution timeline
Phase 1 · Weeks 1–3
Discovery, audit & infrastructure setup
I conducted a full audit of existing hiring processes, consultant dependency patterns, and website performance. Set up CRM, defined candidate journey stages, and mapped them to the internal ATS for a unified data flow. Established baseline metrics for cost-per-hire, source mix, and conversion benchmarks.
Phase 2 · Weeks 3–6
Employer brand strategy & careers site optimisation
I defined HGS's employer value proposition (EVP) and built messaging frameworks for different candidate personas — freshers, experienced BPO professionals, and niche technical roles. Redesigned key careers pages for SEO and conversion, reducing friction in the application journey.
Phase 3 · Weeks 5–10
SEO campaign — keyword targeting & on-page optimisation
I identified 250 high-intent job-seeker keywords across roles, locations, and industry segments. Executed on-page SEO across careers pages, implemented schema markup, improved page load performance, and built a content cluster strategy around hiring-related queries. Result: 125+ keywords ranked in top positions within the campaign cycle.
Phase 4 · Weeks 7–12
Paid campaigns — digital recruitment advertising
I launched Google Search and Display campaigns targeting active job seekers across HGS's key hiring cities and roles. Built role-specific landing pages with application forms connected directly to CRM. I introduced audience segmentation by job function and experience level to maximise relevance and minimise wasted spend.
Phase 5 · Weeks 12–20
Data loop — ATS insights feeding campaign optimisation
With CRM–ATS integration live, campaign optimisation was driven by actual hire data — not just application volume. Identified which channels, keywords, and ad formats produced candidates who passed screening, received offers, and joined. Budget was redistributed weekly based on cost-per-joinee, not just cost-per-application.
Phase 6 · Ongoing
Continuous performance management & scaling
I established a weekly performance cadence with the HR and talent acquisition teams. Monthly reporting tied directly to hiring targets, cost benchmarks, and channel efficiency. Expanded campaigns to new geographies and role types using proven playbooks from Phase 4–5.
Strategic pillars
CRM + ATS integration
Connected marketing CRM with the internal ATS to create a closed-loop data system. Every campaign dollar was traceable to actual hires — not just applications.
Employer brand as a growth asset
I built a compelling EVP and translated it into digital content, careers page messaging, and ad creative — improving candidate trust and application quality simultaneously.
Digital channel proof-of-concept
I positioned digital as a cost-effective, scalable alternative to consultants with hard data — ₹5,000 vs ₹15,000 per hire — creating internal buy-in for further investment.
Organic first, paid to amplify
I built lasting organic presence through SEO before scaling paid. This reduced long-term dependency on ad spend and created a compounding source of free candidate traffic.
Remarketing & retargeting — turning browsers into applicants
One of the highest-impact levers I deployed was a structured remarketing system. Most recruitment campaigns stop at the first touchpoint — a job seeker sees an ad, visits the page, and leaves. Without retargeting, that candidate is lost forever. I changed that.
Careers page visitor retargeting
Candidates who visited the careers site but didn't apply were pooled into a high-intent audience and served tailored follow-up ads across Google Display and Search — keeping HGS top-of-mind through their job search.
Incomplete application recovery
Job seekers who started but abandoned the application form were retargeted with simplified messaging and a friction-reduced landing page — recovering a significant share of near-conversions that would otherwise be wasted spend.
Role-specific audience sequencing
I built sequential retargeting flows per job category. A candidate who viewed a "voice process" opening saw progressively stronger social proof — team stories, career growth content, and salary highlights — before being asked to apply again.
Lookalike audiences from ATS joinee data
Using data from actual joinees in the ATS, I built lookalike audiences to find new candidates who matched the profile of HGS's best hires — dramatically improving the quality of cold acquisition campaigns.
Retargeted candidates converted at 3–4x the rate of cold traffic — at a fraction of the cost-per-application of new audience campaigns.
Cost-per-hire — digital vs. consultant
₹15,000
Per hire via third-party recruiters. No data, no ownership, no scalability.
₹5,000
Per hire via digital campaigns. Full attribution, scalable, and owned.
67% reduction in cost-per-hire — saving ₹10,000 per candidate. At 100 hires/month, that's ₹10 lakh saved every month.
Campaign performance
Organic growth — SEO breakdown
+70%
Organic visitor growth on careers site
125+
Keywords ranked in top 3 positions
250
Total keywords targeted in campaign
Bounce rate — before
70%
Bounce rate — after
40%
Sample keywords ranked
Impact at a glance
₹10K
Saved per hire vs. consultant model
80%
Improvement in campaign results
30pt
Drop in bounce rate (70% → 40%)
What the team said
"I had always relied on consultants and walk-ins — it was the way hiring had always been done at scale. The digital recruitment setup changed that thinking completely. Not only did my cost-per-hire drop dramatically, my talent acquisition team finally had data to work with. The CRM and ATS integration meant I could finally see exactly which channels were producing joinees, not just applicants. That insight alone was worth the investment."
Priya Krishnaswamy
Head of Talent Acquisition, HGS
Strategic outcomes delivered
Digital proven as a cheaper, more scalable channel than consultants
CRM–ATS integration gave TA team real hiring funnel visibility
₹10,000 per hire cost saving — measurable and compound over time
Organic candidate pipeline built — reducing paid ad dependency
125+ keywords ranked — careers site now a talent attraction asset
Employer brand positioned consistently across all digital touchpoints
Why this model works for large-scale hirers
Consultants are a rental — digital is an asset
Every rupee spent building organic reach, careers pages, and CRM infrastructure compounds over time. Consultant fees reset to zero after each hire. Digital marketing builds equity.
Data from hires, not just applications
Most recruitment marketing optimises for applications. By connecting CRM to the ATS, I optimised for joinees — the only metric that actually matters to the business.
Employer brand reduces cost-per-hire permanently
A recognised, trusted employer brand drives inbound candidate interest. Once built, it reduces reliance on paid channels and consultant sourcing across every future hiring cycle.
SEO is the most cost-effective talent channel at scale
At high hiring volumes, organic search produces candidates at near-zero marginal cost. The upfront SEO investment pays back within months and continues to compound indefinitely.
About DPilot
DPilot — Digital Growth & Recruitment Marketing
I design and build performance-driven digital acquisition systems for high-volume hirers, B2B companies, and growth-stage businesses. I specialise in employer branding, recruitment marketing infrastructure, and cost-efficient talent acquisition — replacing expensive traditional models with data-driven digital alternatives — with a proven track record across enterprise recruitment and B2B lead generation.
Paying too much per hire? Let's fix that.
Let's talk about building your recruitment marketing engine.