Recruitment Approaches, Candidate Experience and Organisational Engagement: Evidence from an Indian BPO Organization

This study examines how recruitment approaches influence candidate experience and how candidate experience is associated with organisational engagement among employees and recent joiners in an Indian business process outsourcing context. The study uses a quantitative, cross-sectional design based on 235 valid responses collected through a structured questionnaire. The analysis draws on aggregate frequency distributions, Cronbach's alpha, Pearson correlation, multiple regression model summary and chi-square outputs. To strengthen the analytical contribution, the study applies additional diagnostics that can be validly computed from the available statistics, including Candidate Experience Index, Organisational Engagement Index, Recruitment Process Quality Index, Top-Two-Box and Bottom-Two-Box analysis, Net Candidate Experience Score, recruitment-channel diversity analysis, coefficient of determination, regression F-statistic, Cohen's f², Cramer's V and contingency coefficient. The Candidate Experience Index is 68.76%, the Organisational Engagement Index is 63.94%, and the Recruitment Process Quality Index is 76.99%, indicating that the recruitment process is generally structured but still has scope for improvement in communication quality, values alignment and post-hire perception management. Candidate experience shows a statistically significant positive association with organisational engagement (r = 0.540, p < 0.001), explaining 29.16% shared variance. The regression model explains 39.3% of the variance in the dependent outcome (R = 0.627, R² = 0.393, adjusted R² = 0.385), with a large model effect (Cohen's f² = 0.647). The chi-square result is statistically significant (χ² = 27.646, df = 16, p = 0.035); however, the small Cramer's V value of 0.173 and expected-count limitations suggest that the categorical association should be interpreted cautiously. The findings show that recruitment should be managed not only as a talent-acquisition process but also as an early engagement-building mechanism that shapes organisational perception, role clarity and employee connection.

recruitment approaches; candidate experience; organisational engagement; employer branding; BPO; composite index; AI recruitment

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