Case Study: Adobe achieves stellar early-talent hiring with HackerRank

Adobe’s Approach on Hiring Stellar Early Talent with Prasad Rao

Adobe’s India talent-acquisition team, led by Prasad Rao, faced the classic campus-recruiting challenge: tapping high-potential early talent from a country that produces hundreds of thousands of engineers each year while working with limited time and resources, shifting student preferences (startups vs. big brands), and a persistent employer-brand perception that didn’t reflect Adobe’s broader engineering work. Reaching beyond the top 25–40 colleges, ensuring fair assessment of fundamentals and potential, and building ongoing year‑round engagement with student communities were key pain points.

Adobe addressed this by combining a fundamentals-focused hiring philosophy with technology-enabled screening and targeted outreach. Online assessment platforms (including HackerRank) shortened the time from resume to interview and helped surface relevant candidates from a wider set of schools, while partnerships, diversity campaigns, internships, tech talks, and closer recruiter–hiring-manager collaboration boosted brand presence and pipeline quality. The result: faster, more scalable campus hiring that preserves Adobe’s focus on problem-solving potential, expands reach into under‑served colleges, and supports hiring the ~200 engineers Adobe targets annually.

Adobe

Prasad Kuchoor Rao

Director of Talent Acquisition