Time to let go of the OLD WAYS

It feels like a lifetime ago, but I still remember the excitement of waiting for Times Ascent every Wednesday. It was 1998, and that was how recruitment worked back then. If you were looking for candidates, the first thing you did was grab the newspaper and go through every job listing with a highlighter. It was our go-to resource for finding talent. There were no job portals, no LinkedIn, and no social media. We had to hunt for candidates wherever we could find them—sometimes even at tea stalls or cigarette shops. It was all about knowing where to look and who to talk to.

Back then, job advertisements weren’t limited to print. We plastered ads on billboards, ran them on local radio stations, and even placed them on local cable TV channels. We’d fight to get the best spots because those ads were the lifeblood of our recruitment efforts. If you could get your ad up on a prominent billboard, you were winning.

Communication was a whole different challenge. Making a call to a candidate cost a whopping INR 16 per minute, and receiving a call was INR 6 per minute. We didn’t have the luxury of endless conversations. You had to be sharp—convince, negotiate, and close the deal in as little time as possible. There was no time for chit-chat. Every second counted because it was literally costing you money.

I’ll never forget what Happy Hours meant to us back then. These weren’t the after-work drinks you think of today. For us, it meant 1 am to 4 am—those precious hours when telecom companies offered free incoming and outgoing calls. That’s when we could connect with candidates without worrying about running up a massive phone bill. So, while most people were asleep, we were working—hustling to get those deals closed and positions filled.

Then everything started to change. The early 2000s brought in job portals like Naukri and Monster. Suddenly, you didn’t have to rely on newspapers and billboards anymore. Social media came along, and before we knew it, recruitment was happening online. You had access to a wider pool of candidates, and the game changed overnight. I’ve been lucky enough to witness this shift firsthand.

Fast forward two decades, and I’ve seen it all—from fighting for ad spots in the newspaper to mastering Boolean searches and Google tricks (Thanks to Regan George ). At one point, understanding search techniques felt like the cutting edge of recruitment, but now it’s almost second nature. The world has moved on, and so have we.

One thing I’ve learned through it all is that adaptation is key. Recruitment has never stayed the same for long. What worked yesterday might not work today. Right now, we’re on the brink of yet another change. New tools and technologies are emerging, and they’re making recruitment faster and smarter than ever. It’s time to let go of the old ways—those Boolean searches and manual techniques—and embrace what’s coming next.

So, if you’re still holding onto the past, it’s time to move forward. The future of recruitment is here, and it’s exciting. Whether it’s AI tools, automation, or something new on the horizon, it’s all about staying ahead of the curve. And trust me, you don’t want to get left behind.

Learn. Adapt. Succeed.

Mitcch Duddani Sarang Brahme Achyut Menon "AK" Vijaya Deshpande Piyush Raghuvanshi Clive Rodrigues Victor C. Shivkumar Gurram ↗? Jashan Joshi Anshuman Mukherjee Sri (Srikrishnan Ananthanarayanan) Milind Dadape Arun Prasad Swapna Kole Chinmay Chavan Masood Sayed