Recruitment Experience and
Industry Practices

chillibreeze writer — Shabnam Shaikh

Experience and knowledge of the recruitment industry
I started my career way back in 2003 after completing my graduation. As a fresh graduate, I was tense, with no aim in particular. I joined a start-up consulting company that offered staffing & research solutions to clients who were willing to setup their offshore centers in India. I gained enormous knowledge about the IT/ITES Industry. I got to learn various interviewing techniques, headhunting strategies, and got introduced to processes and methods. I interacted with several professionals on a regular basis, assessed them, and matched their expectations by providing relevant job opportunities. I found it quite satisfactory & decided to pursue my career further on similar lines to gain excellence in the chosen field.

I got appropriate opportunities and it helped me grow organically in my field. There were no short-cuts. I worked with start-ups, mid-size firms, and large corporations too. The experience has been phenomenal. There were moments of victory & distress. There were frustrations of not meeting targets too. On the whole, the journey has been good & quite a learning one.

Over a period of time, I have noticed that the recruitment industry has gained its much desired recognition. It’s now more dynamic and a critical wing of HR. If they are termed as revenue generator, they are rightly called so, as the biggest driver for any successful business is its human capital which brings the right skills & the passion to deliver. Recruitment is a competitive & complete cycle of requirement gathering, planning, sourcing, screening, coordinating, interviewing, negotiating, making an offer, on-boarding & conducting reference/background checks.

Recruiters should always be well-informed about market information, as the awareness helps them be on par. Industry-wide developments, changes, new norms & practices empower a recruiter. Recruiters must be trained well to interview, they must be aware of which questions to ask at which level & where to set the limitations.

Recruitment is a highly responsible job & it must be perceived as a career option, only if one has an aptitude & desire towards it. Like, we all know we must love what we do & do what we love doing.

Status of pre-hire assessments in India (benefits/uses)

It’s mandatory to conduct suitable assessments in order to bring in the right mix of people in the organization. Though, most organizations have their pre-hire assessment program in place, it might vary in its structures/processes. Pre-hire assessment helps us identify the right candidates; analyze their skills, strengths to fill the vacant position.

Communication issues of potential employees in India. Assessment process for new hires - Are communication skills typically considered important for Indian companies?

Communication plays a very crucial role in one’s career development, especially in recent times when the BPO services have proliferated. However, in the IT Industry, it’s often disregarded as the panel feels that the candidates predominantly must excel in coding. They pay heed to communication skills only if there’s possibly a client-interaction involved. My opinion slightly differs here. All individuals must focus enormously on the communication skills, or else it hinders professional growth.

When we refer to communication skills, the expectations are not just English speaking skills, its being expressive, conveying the message across, sentence building, grammar, pronunciation, right usage of words, voice modulation etc. One must be a strong communicator to be able to judge the skills. While evaluating them; we typically ask open-ended questions to the candidates and create a platform for them to talk a lot. It becomes a real challenge to assess if the person is shy and doesn’t talk much out of phobia. (Though, they may be good communicators amongst their peers/family etc) Probably a bit of coaching may help them break such barriers. For BPOs on an average, the pre-hire assessment is in place; they either have a Language Expert interviewing the profiles or have an automated voice testing system to test the language skills. For technical roles or other profiles, it’s essential that organization-wide some benchmark is created. We can choose to be lenient, but only to a certain extent.
Professionally, one may get frustrated due to poor communication skills. It can deter the growth towards next level. This can be resolved however at foundation level itself. They should be made aware of its importance at schools & colleges.

Typically, each organization has a different prehire assessment technique. And the level of pre-hire assessment differs based on desired profile, skills & experience.

• A Fresh Hire – A fresher is absolutely raw. It becomes slightly difficult to assess them over interactions. Hence, a written test is conducted to gauge his/her aptitude/logical/analytical skills. It isn’t inclusive, but the first step towards assessment. Overall academic performance also speaks volumes besides the test-score. Further, based on interviews and discussions, the confidence, energy levels, body language, attitude, communication, clarity of thought & goals can be mapped by asking the right kind of questions.
• A Lateral Hire – It’s slightly challenging to hire experienced professionals, as it’s mostly though the discussions/interviews we make an assessment of a candidate. Though, sometimes domain based pre-assessments can be executed. It helps to select the best. It’s equally important to ask the right kind of questions and a slight preparation from both the sides help. This can be done by studying the profile carefully and focus on the areas that the person has worked upon. For leadership roles one can go through certain behavioral tests too or can be probed in detail on his/her career goals, expectations etc. In some cases; where we are slightly uncertain about hiring, multiple panel rounds can be helpful, to gather collective feedback & infer conclusion.
• Chiefly, the roles involving customer service, continual client interaction, marketing, sales, product/project managers require strong communication skills. Even leadership roles need to have effective communication skills. Communication skill is most definitely a key skill but not the only skill required to perform your job in the required function. The right aptitude, attitude, displaying good team building skills on the job, good energy levels, and adaptability are some of the other skills that play an integral role in shaping an individual’s career in the long run.

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Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in May, 2011. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

 

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—About our writer: Shabnam Shaikh, a post graduate in Human Resource Management has over 7 years of rich experience in recruitment & HR operations. She is also an executive committee member of a non-profit organization. She is currently based in Hyderabad. Writing is her passion & she blogs to express her thoughts & opinions. Her other interests include theater, traveling, reading & cooking.

 

 

 

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