BPO firm, Firstsource Solutions has been recognized as the Best Recruiting Department of the Year in the ERE 2009 Recruiting Excellence Awards. Firstsource shared the finalist position with Microsoft.

The finalists for the award were chosen from a list of 160 companies that had participated from over 27 countries. There were 8 categories covering various aspects of Recruiting and Employer Branding and participants included prominent names like Accenture, E&Y, KPMG, Wipro, TCS, IBM, Yahoo, American Cancer Society and others.

While conferring the award the judges remarked, "Firstsource has an extremely strong recruiting department. We liked their innovative usage of new sourcing methodologies and creative usage of traditional methods such as employee referrals."

Commenting on the award, Aashu Calapa, Global Head of HR said that the ability to recruit in large numbers most often in a short span of two months is core to running a large global BPO operation. “Firstsource’s strong internal referral program generates 26% of all new hires and this is complimented by innovative hiring methods like the Career-On-Wheels initiative. We are delighted with the jury’s recognition of these all-round capabilities while conferring us this prestigious award.”

Firstsource has over 22,000 employees spread across locations in India, US, UK, Argentina and Philippines. In India, Firstsource recruits not only from metros like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru but from towns and cities like Jallandhar, Siliguri, Bhopal, Indore, Trichy, Vijaywada, Hubli, Kochi and Bhubaneshwar where it has local operations. In India, its recruitment team processed over 2,00,000 applications in FY2008-09 and made over 17,000 entry level hires.