A Recruiter takes Potshots

2007-04-20T05:44:00.000+03:00

Companies don't seem to get it ..A Recruitment Agency is your firm's biggest Brand Ambassador . Today every most IT firms in India work with as many as 100-150 recruitment /staffing firms to meet their hiring numbers .

Requirements are released to all and sundry and If you close a position , a contract is signed.
In the race to meet hiring targets no importance is given to the candidate validation process,the recruiters awareness of the company's business.

Picture this Accenture closes on an average 500 positions every month(India) ... Let do some reverse calculation .
Lets assume 1 in 5 Interviewed gets hired (an optimistic estimate)= 500*5= 2500 Interviews every month

A widely agreed thumbrule in recruitment circles today is that only 25% of confirmed candidates turn up for a recruitment event , which means 2500*4 =10000 confirmed candidates every month

Not every candidate contacted is interested in Accenture - Suppose 1in 3 candidates contacted confirms his interest and agrees to an Interview (again very very optimistic figures)= 10000*3 candidates contacted = 30,000

30,000 one on one direct interactions every month = 360,000 calls in one year

Imagine the impact on branding if this channel is haphazard.

Process Oriented Recruitment ????

2007-04-18T07:44:00.000+03:00

This is the new buzzword doing the rounds in Indian IT/ BPO firms ,suddenly recruiters who have been on the receiving end for years from jargon spewing Line managers are having their day in the sun.
I was at a recruitment meet organised by a well known IT firm recently and saw recruiters put on their MBA caps and devise complex recruitment strategies while hapless Line managers watched
The tables have turned ...Hurray

More on Process Oriented recruitment later

2007-04-15T12:41:00.000+03:00

Here is some interesting news on Google ... I wonder what impact this will have on Google's hiring plan in India ..especially when there is talk of a new 4000+ seater office coming up

World Cup and Recruiting

2007-03-24T10:27:00.000+03:00

The World Cup is here... with India's debacle in this series .. recruiters can get on with their jobs . Its a time of plenty for the Indian Jobseeker . ..he is choosy ..arrogant and firms will have to wait till he is done watching the worldcup .. to approach him with a job offer I love watching cricket .. but thats only when India is winning .

Whats the secret

2007-02-03T18:22:00.000+03:00

Why is it that some people seem to make all the right career moves ..all that they touch turns to gold and then there are people who despite degrees from great colleges and right opportunities fail to sizzle .

4 Years of reviewing profiles and career moves of innumerable candidates has left me with only one conclusion ... Attitude is everything !!!

Online Marketplace catching up

2007-01-04T06:38:00.000+03:00

Indians are shedding the fear of buying online .. as products are getting standardized it is no longer important to touch and feel before buying

Rediff .. Indiatimes ...E bay .. all seem to be doing well going by the vibrancy of deals and the freshness of products offered.

Not to be left behind Pantaloon has also started www.futurebazaar.com

Careers with these companies also seem to be lucrative I have come across profiles from Rediff and other dot com firms with 10 lakh+ salaries(MBA with 5+ yrs exp ) ..not bad at all ..I guess IT is not the only option for people looking for high salaries

Fake resumes - An Indian Recruiters Nightmare

2006-12-20T04:39:00.000+03:00

You feel elated ..you have spotted the perfect resource for the job.. the profile speaks of years of experience with Multinational firms ..degrees from reputed Colleges ..only to find out-if you are lucky- after rounds of interviews that it is Fake .

How severe is it ?- It is estimated that close to 30 % of Profiles available in the Job market within the IT steam in India have some element of falsification

So what is the way out? The most common answer I have heard -"We need to build Information databases at a National level....." .

In this country being a Freshman is a curse .. Most people I have talked to say they do it out of necessity - You dont get job till you show a few years of experience on your resume . This is the root cause ...we should work towards tackling this

Who is the Culprit

2006-12-18T05:10:00.000+03:00

One of the most common laments I hear from Hr executives of IT/ITES companies that I work with is about "unprofessional nature of recruits.." ... candidates chasing multiple offers.....high turnover ... expectation of 40-50% hike every year ..

Someone even predicted that if the spiraling employee cost continues IT companies would no longer be competitive in the global space and the "Indian Greedy employee will be a victim to his own doing"

Such hue and Cry is understandable as rising employee cost and turnover pinch the bottom line and raise questions on the efficacy of highly paid management gurus in the Human resources function.

On the other hand it is not as if an entire generation of workers woke up one day.. smelt the money and turned greedy .. especially when most of us have seen our fathers work with one single company from start to retirement .

The seed I suspect was sown by the very people who are complaining today ... they hired at will to take advantage of the dollar conversion rate and fired at will when projects failed to materialize .. People were asked to pack their stuff and leave within 30 minutes of being sacked .. A western concept undiscovered by Indian employers till then . How then can companies today expect employees to not jump at the next best opportunity available to them .

The "Great Indian Middle class" has just tasted consumerism and they will continue to demand more despite HR Gurus resurrecting dusty old Indian values like Loyalty (read -continue working for peanuts).... and this will have a trickle down effect on other strata of society.

It is this pinch that is driving companies to scale up the value chain and not the farsighted vision of highly paid management consultants.

2006-09-22T15:00:00.000+03:00