SYNAPSE - 2014
SYNAPSE - 2014
Each person is looking
at you from different
angles, so they make a
different collage of
perceptions to see
whether he is the right
candidate or not
We need to look at
developmental side of
the business, we need
more of that but we
look at the
transactional, more
visible tangible work
When companies today want only the
best, how will recruitment evolve in the
future?
Unfortunately it is a very raw process that is
followed, who is the best person, there is no
metric to decide that. It is a subjective judgment that is made. If I am hiring a person for
the first time, what background information is
required to make that subjective judgment?
You have a piece of paper that is his resume in
your hand, and resume writing is an art. People have presented their profile to me, and due
to the lack of time I need to rush through the
interview so I get at most 10-15 minutes with
a guy. You don’t get to probe in depth so you
go by some superficial indicators like his education, his marks etc. So as long as the recruitment is going to be so ad hoc we will end up
with some bad recruitment. But if I will be
stuck with a person for several years at high
cost, his salary multiplies by the length of time
spent, shouldn’t we explore this potential
more scientifically and more in-depth. So
recruitment as of now is very erratic, one reason why the people are coming in and going
out fast is because we have chosen the wrong
guy, and he has also chosen the wrong organization, both realize their mistakes after sometime and part ways. If this process is done
more scientifically, the candidates chose organizations more carefully and the organizations chose the candidates more carefully may
be this turnover could be much less.
Apart from psychometric testing and
profiling what other trends are the
company looking forward to?
Companies are now using tests on analytical
thinking. They will give you problems of all
kinds, there is no mathematical answer to that
problem but they want see how you struggle
to analyze that problem, the answer does not
matter but the process of analyzing is what
they want to see. There are companies that
will not interviews through a panel but they
will interview you throughout the day by different people, so each person is looking at you
from different angles, so they make a different
collage of perceptions to see whether he is the
right candidate or not.
What are your views on the HR role in
the future?
HR has been saying that they want to sit up at
the board table, nothing wrong with that, but
we have to increase our service to the organization. HR’s do a lot of transactional work
like performance appraisal and promotional
work, training programs etc. which all is hard
work, but what has it added to the business?
Has it added some value to the business? We
need to look at developmental side of the business, we need more of that but we look at the
transactional, more visible tangible work and
that has been the biggest bane of HR all these
years.
What can be done to get out of that?
May be some of that work can be outsourced
at a low cost. And then we can free our self to
the higher level work but we need to develop
the competencies for the same and when we
can show that we are contributing more to the
business , then the HR’s importance can be the
same as of the finance and other functions.