IndiGo Automated Hiring Funnel: Source Better Talent With Ease, At Scale

IndiGo, one of the world's fastest-growing carriers, faced significant challenges with its legacy, resource-intensive walk-in interview model for year-round hiring. This costly, manual process lacked digitalization, leading to recruitment fatigue and poor data management.

By partnering with Unstop, IndiGo implemented a full-stack recruitment automation solution (with a built-in ATS). This digital transformation streamlined screening, assessment, tracking, and evaluation into a single platform. The result was a dramatic shift that reduced hiring costs, slashed time-to-hire, digitalized the entire workflow, and ensured every hiring decision was backed by standardized, high-quality data.

The Challenge: A Traditional, Manual Approach to High-Flying Demand

IndiGo’s hiring model was struggling to keep pace with its rapid business expansion. Their reliance on large, frequent physical walk-in interviews created bottlenecks and inefficiencies across the talent acquisition department:

• High Costs and Resource Drain: Massive human effort and expense were required for logistics, venue management, and manually sifting through thousands of candidates annually.
• Lack of Data and Structure: Information was collected only for candidates who were shortlisted, meaning valuable data on candidates who didn't clear the initial rounds was lost.
• Inefficient Screening: Recruiters spent countless hours interviewing candidates whose resumes did not align with actual skill levels, leading to high recruitment fatigue and a slower overall time-to-hire.
• Bias and Subjectivity: Without standardized digital screening tools, initial shortlisting was prone to inconsistency and human bias.

IndiGo needed a unified, digital funnel that could handle the volume, enforce quality, and turn data into a competitive advantage. With Unstop, IndiGo’s digital hiring drive amassed a record 2Mn+ impressions and 1,00,000+ registrations across freshers and early professionals.

The Solution: A Single, Smart Platform for End-to-End Hiring Automation

Unstop designed and deployed a customized, automated recruitment solution that digitalized IndiGo's entire funnel, creating a seamless experience for both recruiters and candidates. The platform's strength lay in allowing IndiGo to run high-volume hiring for multiple jobs (AO&CS and Cabin Crew/IFS) simultaneously, each with custom online assessment and evaluation logic.

Stage 1: Digital Registration and Automated Screening

The process began with an easy 3-step registration and application submission. This instantly digitalized all candidate information.

• Automated Vetting: Our system performed automated checks for role-specific prerequisites, such as the "no tattoo" rule (based on candidate answers), specific location, highest qualification, and more, ensuring immediate, non-biased compliance screening before the next stage.
• Applicant Tracking: All essential information was immediately compiled, structured, and available in one place for recruiters. Automated candidate screening tools and identity checks ensured that the initial shortlist was both credible and compliant with pre-defined criteria.

For the IndiGo team, this meant: 

The smart Application Tracking System (ATS) and automated screening quickly moved candidates past initial roadblocks, ensuring only credible candidates entered the assessment phase.

Stage 2: Proctored Online Assessments Customized for Role & Skill Fitness

Candidates who cleared the initial screening moved into customized online assessment tracks, leveraging Unstop's platform for objective scoring.

Track A: AO&CS (Aptitude and Automation)

• MCQ Assessment: Candidates completed a basic MCQ section followed by mathematical aptitude questions. The platform's written ability test assessment tool provided an automatic score.
• Evaluation: The system handled the initial shortlisting based on performance, preparing candidates for the final interview stage.

Track B: Cabin Crew/ IFS (AI-Backed Quality Control)

This track involved advanced, multi-layered quality checks to ensure presentability and communication fitness.

• Presentability Check: Candidates submitted a speech video submission, which was evaluated by the IndiGo team for presentability, with the platform automatically providing the score.
• Holistic Fitness Scoring (CEFR): In keeping with IndiGo’s requirements, we devised a two-part evaluation process for communication, fitness, and readiness:
• The Unstop’s automated hiring platform provided an AI-generated CEFR score for candidate communication skills.
• The in-house I-fly team then accessed this data on the platform, gave their own CEFR score, and the system combined these for a holistic, weighted view. (IndiGo is currently using this data to compare the dependability of the AI-generated score versus the human-assessed score, moving toward future hyper-automation.)
• Custom Workflow (LOI Feature): Unstop team built a custom feature specifically for IndiGo to issue a Letter of Intent (LOI) to candidates with near-acceptable communication skills. This helped IndiGo create a separate pipeline of near-ready candidates, who were required to get mandated training from Partner organizations and reappear for assessments. 

For the IndiGo team, this meant:

Ensured Integrity: Unstop’s online proctoring features confirmed the integrity of the online assessments, while a pre-built library and customization options allowed IndiGo to precisely test the skills needed for specific roles.

Bias-free & Fair Evaluation: Automated AI-based scoring and evaluation provided deep, immediate insights. All candidates were measured against the same predefined criteria, compiling results structured in a dashboard for final human review, effectively removing early-stage human bias.

Stage 3: Optimized Interview Scheduling and Shortlisting

• Bulk Scheduling: Post online assessments, the IndiGo team used Unstop’s virtual interview platform to bulk schedule thousands of interviews. 
• Our platforms’ automatic updates and immediate access to the custom evaluation forms made the process seamless and gave it a much-needed structure.
• The IndiGo team was able to organize candidates by location to schedule interviews for different airport locations.
• The ability to bulk download Excel and PDF reports consisting of candidate information, scores, etc., helped facilitate the final interview and shortlisting process.
• Data-Backed Decisions: After the interviews, the IndiGo team filled out custom evaluation forms built to collect data in key metrics, meeting the organization’s specific needs.
• Unstop’s AI recruitment automation features (with built-in applicant tracking) then used the score and aggregated data to provide a final shortlist of candidates. This ensured better decision-making backed by data, not bias.

The Impact: Hiring Takes Off with Unstop’s Recruitment Automation

The digitization of IndiGo’s hiring process with Unstop’s recruitment automation platform and smart ATS created a fundamental shift in IndiGo’s hiring function, delivering tangible improvements in efficiency, cost, and data quality.

Unstop’s recruitment automation platform turned IndiGo’s costly, time-consuming walk-in process into an efficient, scalable, and data-backed digital operation, setting the stage for continued growth and data-driven talent decisions.

Script Your Own Hiring Success Story with Unstop

Unstop and IndiGo scripted a new language of talent sourcing success. If you're looking to revolutionize your hiring and branding strategies at scale, reach out to us at coffee@unstop.com.