Sapient Triathlon case study | Transforming the recruitment process with a hiring challenge

A digital transformation company, Publicis Sapient was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was in 1990 when the co-founders Jerry Greenberg and J. Stuart Moore realized the need to revolutionize the IT consulting world and bring about a revolution like no other. In simpler words, Publicis Sapient looks at fusing the two routes of problem-solving - Business/Technology Consulting and Digital Solutions, thus helping organizations engage better with their customers and allowing them to leverage the cloud-based technology.

The Triathlon Journey

The story of Sapient Triathlon began in the year 2018 when it decided to re-look at its recruitment system. The organization wanted to make it a fun and engaging activity for potential candidates, such that students from all over the country turn up in large numbers to participate in the challenge.

This is where Sapient joined hands with Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) taking its engagement to a whole new level. Sapient wanted to curate a challenge devised especially for Engineering students across colleges in India such that they could identify top talent and test their skills on a variety of parameters. With this in mind, the Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) team set afloat on a mission to design a campaign that would fulfill the organization’s hiring needs and consequently help students associate with Publicis Sapient as a brand. 

The Unstop approach - Sapient Triathlon

The team at Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) had to put together everything that could tie the two parties together in a single loop. Keeping both stakeholders in purview, the three rounds of Sapient Triathlon were devised, each of which was specially curated to assess the candidates on the different parameters. The competition was carried out in three stages via a series of gamified assessments with a stage-wise cumulative leaderboard. 

The hiring challenge progressed in the following stages: 

• Analytical Hackathon (Non-Coding): Designed by the team at Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) students were offered data sets and were required to analyse and make sense out of them. They consequently had to answer business-oriented analytical questions on a specific domain within the stipulated time of 1-2 hours. 
• Coding Hackathon: The Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) team was at work for this as well. 4 different coding challenges were curated for participants which had to be completed within 3 hours. The questions had varied difficulty levels to bring out the best in the participants. 
• IT Simulation Game: A unique simulation game devised by Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) gave students a virtual platform where they were required to manage a complete IT project with the given set of resources, all on their own. 

The outcome

The one-of-a-kind hiring challenge by Sapient brought numerous factors into light: 

• Sapient Triathlon helped the organization reach out to as many as 1,30,569 students, garnering more than 6,393 student registrations from 3rd and 4th year engineering students across India.
• Publicis Sapient was able to work on its employer branding amongst the young students of today by connecting with them on a personal level and helping them understand the values and objectives that the organization stands for. 
• Sapient Triathlon helped the company identify top talent, helping them take home as many as 50-75 top engineering graduates who participated in the challenge. The organization also offered PPIs to the ones graduating in 2018 and 2019.
• The National winner took home an iPhone X and the two runners-up were awarded a MacBook Pro each. 

Sapient Triathlon marked the beginning of a journey that is yet to explore its full potential. This unique hiring challenge has not only left a lasting impression on the students of engineering colleges but has also reflected upon the need to bring about a change in the run-of-the-mill recruitment system. In that regard, Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) is proud to be an integral part of this revolution that will only strengthen its roots in the years to come. With a hope that Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) will land an opportunity to work with Publicis Sapient in the near future, it wishes them the best!