8 Recruitment Methods that Work in India

You can view the PPT here

Recruitment is the most critical part of a usability test. The quality of the participant dictates the appropriateness of the research done. A wrong recruit will skew the report and mislead the research data.

The research team at Kern takes utmost care during the recruitment phase. They take every usability test as a challenge and this has resulted in the diverse recruitment methods we have found that works in India.
Every usability test has unique set of participant and one formula of recruitment does not work for all. In this article we discuss about all the recruitment methods that we at Kern, have designed and perfected over years of conduction usability in India.

The nature of study and the target profile dictates the type of methods to be used for recruitment. The key methods to recruit are:

1. Hire recruitment agencies - for rural usability test
It is advisable to work with a local NGO (Non Government Organization) or a rural marketing company to identify desired participants. It’s important that the recruiters then travel and physically verify the participant particulars, willingness for the study, and availability.

TIP: Validate their age by their age proof as they do not know their birth date or year. Go by their identity proof, such as their election cards

2. Social networks and forums on internet
This works well for people who have access to internet. Most of the IT processionals do have access to internet. A good number of households too have internet connection. Many others access it through cyber cafes. The recruiter should host an online survey and use online forums and social networking sites to advertise it. Create a motivator email and embed the survey link within for the respondents to use it.

3. Use database
Use internal directory of users who may have participated in earlier studied or have expressed interest in future studies.
TIP: Update the database after each research study.

4. Cold Calls from online phone directories
This type of recruitment method should be used when you have to recruit rare profiles with complex mix of characteristics or to compliment other methods. This can also be used when the recruitment has to finish in a very short period. The recruiter will need to fetch contact details from online directories and call each suitable person. While on the call, the recruiter should be equipped with a script for the phone screening and make very quick and detailed notes about the participant.
Review all the responses and filter the best matched profiles. Call them for the second round of screening and work on a suitable date and time for the test session. It is important at this point to emphasis the compensation they will receive for participating.

5. Hit the streets
This type of recruitment is used to find users who do not use internet or when the study demands certain profiles who cannot be contacted by other methods of recruitment.
To start with the recruiter should learn about the topology of the city of recruitment and select the most suitable place to hit the street. This location can be decided based on the type of profile one is looking for. Should it be a busy market place, school area or where one would find many senior citizens?
The recruiter should be carrying the following along with him:
•a digital camera to take still pictures and videos
•a note pad to take the notes
•business card and an identity proof
•Screener copies

The trick is to judge a person by face value and approach him. The conversation should start with an introduction about oneself and then about the study. Fill the screener with them and share your business card. This builds in trust that you come from a reputed company/organization and that their information is in safe hands.
Before you end the conversation, check for the completeness of the screener. Let them know that you will call them within 1-2 working days if they qualify.

6. Posters at public places
Posters are very effective to catch public attention at local departmental stores, coffee shops or at public places. Design a decent size attractive poster, with basic details of type of profile you are looking for. Indicate the cash one will receive for participating. This usually works as good motivation for people to contact you on reading this.

7. Distribute screeners at various checkpoints
This method is best suited when you have to recruit large number of target participants within a short period. For this make a print version of your online survey and tie-up with various retail outlets where targeted profiles are most likely to visit. Motivate the shop owner, to distribute these to his customers. Fix a drop box in each of these outlets where the customers can drop their filled surveys.
The team should on a daily basis collect the filled surveys.

8. Fliers at retail outlets
Design an attractive flier, with basic details of type of profile you are looking for. Indicate the cash one will receive for participating. This usually works as good motivation for people to contact you on reading this.
Tie up with local retail shops and leave these fliers at their counters. Ask them to encourage their customers to carry one with them, or to slip one flier in each of the shopping bags.

Things I wish to do before I die

This is a part of the exercise Sneha has asked us to do during her 'writting well' workshop today at Kern. This is the unedited version.

Five things I want to DO before I die

Been long haven’t thought about this.. fantastic!
What do I want from my life... and what is it that I should do before I die??? Mmmm… I am a little greedy when it comes to my happiness in life.. I definitely want to be the happiest soul on earth when I die... now what do I do to be happy… lets me pen down what comes to mind jus now..
1. Happiness is my daughter
2. Happiness is my hubby
3. Happiness is my parents
4. Happiness is when I see people around me happy
5. Happiness is to rejoice ever moment…
Ok. This concludes to that I am going to work on every bit to bank on happiness for these 3 most important people in my life… be there for them.. spend most of my time and leisure moments with them for them.

I would like many others, love to see the world. Travel.. see the most beautiful places on earth.

I cannot swim… but I want to swim in the sea…wow! Isn’t that a little too ambitious.. But I want to, and have been planning to start to learn to swim. I will someday, before I die will swim in the sea.
So that’s count 3.. Another 2 things I want to do before I die..
I want to spend more time on painting..been very long that I have painted and want to take this up actively.

Another thing I wish to do before I die would be to float a business with my hubby.. a food business. Have been planning on this.. being a foodies, me n my hubby plan to spend the later days of our lives.. experimenting with food and treating people to the best food.

What are Ethics

Its been sometime that I have been encoutring this word 'ETHICS' very often at work and home. Its very interesting to see how ethics hold a very different meaning to different people and to same person under different situations. I have many questions and very few answers at this point... here goes my list
- Are Ethics = to values.
- Does your culture dictate your set of ethics
- Do ethics change at different stages of life. Should they change?
- It is flexible such that I can twist and trun it as per my convinence
- Is it no more what one lives by, lives for?
- Is it OK to forget ethics to gain prosperity and popularity??
What are ethics.. I am confused.

Brands @ BoP

Yesterday my cook enquired me about home grinders. Which brand is good and the approximate cost of each. How should she choose one. I explained her all in detail. She kept nodding her head and was happy to learn the variations and models available in market. Then she said she plans to buy one and if I can help her with it. I agreed and asked her budget. She said 2500Rs is what she had planned, but can spend little more. But emphasised that it SHOULD be a BRANDED one, with all possible features in it. I asked if she is sure she wants an expensive one. I was amazed on what I heard. She said "unlike you I cannot buy stuff regularly and spend extra money on its service and maintenance. I buy branded stuff as it then guarantees the quality of product. It has to be a one time - a life time purchase for me".

Quite an Unconventional Recruitment

Recently we conducted a user study at Kern Communications. The participant profile demanded that they do not have emails of their own. Well! How do we recruit now? Most of the studies we ran earlier, we used the internet to reach to the people, advertise on various online forums and within the network. It’s easy to recruit people once they fill the screener we publish online and then we filter the matching profile and run a final phone screener with them. Send them invitation and reminder emails. So as you see it’s all managed online.

Welcome to a world where people do not use internet and have no clue what an email is! How do we recruit any participant now? For this study we had to recruit far a larger number than we had done for most of the previous study.

The team brainstormed and the avenues were:
Contact people within network: Failed miserably as all the people in the network do have at least one email.

Ask friend and relatives to share their contacts: This was better; we at least got to talk to few people on phone that does not have emails. But it was very difficult to help them understand what we are doing. Why we need to talk to them, etc.

Put up poster at public places: We designed small poster which were put up at various public points around the city. A few did call us after reading it. We conducted the hone screening and invited them to our office for a final screening round before we recruited them.

Go. Hit the street: Ok! We do not have enough time to wait for people to read the poster and call us, and all the personal, friends and relatives contacts were exhausted, so we now planned to hit the streets. The team split and went out to different locations in the city. We carried the screeners with us. We spoke to almost all who were ready to spare a few minutes to listen to us. We met many interesting people. (Shall blog about this later as it needs a dedicated blog!)

None of the team members had done this before and it was good fun. By the end of the third day we had spoken to about 100+ strangers and filled many screeners. We were now experts to start a conversation with just about anybody. A few of us were also famous in the areas we had been to, and people began referring others to come and meet us, they worked as our agents.

Only street recruitment helped us. We successfully recruited about quite a large number of participants. We had planned to recruit many backups this time as the trust factor was really low. None of the parties knew each other or a third party- the middle men was missing completely.

We took their contact numbers and called them for second and final round of screening. Once the candidates were finalised we met them personally and handed them the confirmation letter. This worked great as a little trust value was built.

The things we did for the first time in this study:
•Street recruitment
•Hand delivery of confirmation letters
•Multiple calls and sms to remind them about the study

Excuses people make

In the past few months we have at work been running crazy usability tests. For this we take all measure to recruit the right candidates for the study. Once the team zeros on the participants to be invited by us, we go out of way to give them all the comfort to ensure that they turn up for the study.

1. We work on a time slot that suits them
2. Arrange for a pick up and drop service
3. Send formal invitation for the study and multiple reminders via emails and SMS about their session.
4. In a recent study we conducted we met the participants personally and handed them their invitation letter.

Despite all these efforts we have observed that a few don’t just turn up, even after committing. I have attempted to make a list of most effective excuses people make when they do not have to turn up. The excuses are

1. Somebody very close- a friend or someone in family passed last evening (if the session is next morning) or this morning ( if the session is in the evening)
2. I have some very urgent work at hand
3. I have a pooja to perform
4. I have unexpected guest at home
5. I forgot about the session
6. Or the best-- They just switch off their mobiles just before the session and never reply to emails.

And if they are late:

1. I am stuck in the traffic
2. Held in the meeting
3. My boss didn’t let me leave early
4. I have work to finish before I join you for session--- so the cab is waiting at the pick up point since about an hour( and we pay for the waiting time of the cabs too)

Usability month

Its been long that I had enough time to blog. Been busy with crazy usability test we ran back to back at my work place. All three were very interesting with different products and participant profiles. At Kern we have a dedicated Usability Testing lab with best setup and equipments. Its always exicting to see how same product is used differently by different people.

I guess this is the reason why the designer of the product or the team should not run the UTs, especially as the moderator. The designers usually tend to get biased with their designs. Somebody outside the team will be quite unbiased, which helps in deriving true results from the session.