Addressing Talent Shortage: Lenovo Achieves Sales Hiring Target Via A Business Simulation Game

5 mins read

Lenovo, a Fortune Global 500 company with a remarkable revenue of USD 50 Billion, is at the forefront of transforming the tech industry. With a global presence in 180+ countries, the company is committed to developing world-changing technologies that empower millions of customers daily. And as a company focused on constant growth and evolution, Lenovo recognizes the pivotal role played by top talent in driving its sales force and achieving continued success.

In this case study, we will take a closer look at how Lenovo charted a strategic course to streamline its recruitment process - rooted in a deep understanding of its business needs. It portrays how their recruitment strategy enabled them to attract the crème-de-la-crème of the sales industry—the brightest, young talent with the potential to become Lenovo Future Leaders.

The Talent Puzzle 

Lenovo, known for its belief in better, faster, simpler, smarter technology for all is focused on changing the world - and being changed. To be able to drive this change, they recognized the need for the right talent to align with their expansion goals.

This prompted them to kickstart their hunt to identify and recruit candidates who possessed the desired skill set, a keen eye for fresh perspectives, and an unwavering passion for technology. However, this proved to be an arduous task for Lenovo because of three main reasons:

1. Lack of experience: Exposure cannot be replaced by facts and figures gained from textbooks. Experience in working in teams towards a common goal for an organization adds skills that are hard to come by in fresh graduates. Both experienced and recent graduates come with specific qualities. Here the ask was to target and engage with MBAs with prior work experience and working professionals.
2. Limited exposure to real-world challenges: Fresh candidates have theoretical knowledge about sales concepts, but they often lack practical exposure and hands-on experience in real sales scenarios. Finding candidates who can quickly adjust to the demands of a sales career is tough for companies due to the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world exposure. 
3. Cultural fit: Having the right cultural fit is key to performance and engagement in client-facing roles like sales. However, candidates with limited exposure to the corporate environment might find it challenging to demonstrate their fit within the company's culture.

Navigating the Talent Acquisition Maze at Lenovo

To address these challenges, Lenovo partnered with Unstop, a leading hiring solutions provider. Together, they brainstormed ways to optimize the talent acquisition process and crafted a hiring campaign - Lenovo Future Leaders - You Transform Tomorrow 

Unstop offered invaluable assistance in sourcing high-quality candidates, specifically targeting recent MBA graduates with a focus on sales and marketing, strategy, and general management.

First, Unstop team devised a multi-phased, well-crafted competition to tackle Lenovo’s challenges head-on and attract the right talent with essential skills. For the first round, the Unstop team crafted a Sales and Business Development Quiz comprising 20 questions. This quiz aimed to sift through candidates for the subsequent round.

Creative: Lenovo Future Leaders - You Transform Tomorrow (Rounds)

For the second round, Unstop introduced a business simulation game called ‘Retail’. As planned, this helped Lenovo to assess candidates' skills by immersing them in a virtual environment mirroring real-world business scenarios.

By exposing candidates to this assessment approach, they efficiently narrowed down the perfect fit for the final interview round, resulting in substantial resource savings. With this, let’s delve into the benefits and profound impact achieved!

Results and Benefits

By partnering with Unstop and incorporating the Retail business simulation game into their hiring process, Lenovo achieved several significant outcomes. 

1. The collaboration provided Lenovo with access to a vast talent pool of recent MBA graduates, ensuring a strong pipeline of potential sales professionals. 
2. The business simulation game allowed Lenovo to evaluate candidates' capabilities in a realistic and challenging environment, ensuring a more accurate assessment of their suitability for the Sales and Project Management role.
3. Through this refined talent acquisition format, Lenovo successfully attracted and recruited 10 top-quality candidates who possessed the desired skill set, fresh perspectives, and a passion for technology at an annual compensation offered is INR 20 Lakhs + INR 4 Lakhs bonus.
4. The campus hiring solutions of Unstop helped them to save time and resources by giving them everything they needed to run their engagement activity on a single platform - from launching the competition to rolling out offer letters. 
5. Not to forget to mention the added bonus of conducting campus engagement activities via Unstop hiring platform -a powerful media coverage through all its social media channels and newsletters.

To You, From Unstop

The importance of a customized recruitment strategy combined with the right technology cannot be stressed enough. Before we wrap up this case study, let us share our 2 cents with you:

• It's not just the decade-established companies that can benefit from online campus recruitment. There are young companies like Ather and Axeno who successfully executed their hiring strategies and came out with flying colors.
• And, one strategy simply can't work for everyone!

No matter if you're looking to hire a few amazing candidates or many, we've got a strategy that's tailor-made just for you. Just drop us a line at coffee@unstop.com and we'll help you discover your perfect fit. 

Here's to opening up doors of opportunities for companies and students alike!