A Recruiters Enhanced Skill Set

Dear Mr. Kapil Sibal, I extend my greetings and welcome your 3 language scheme to some extent. I have a suggestion, since schools all over India are resisting to the concept. How about making it a 5 language scheme, and imposing it on a certain section of the Professional Society in B-Schools or Company’s/Firms. The HR Recruiters! We are in dire need of enhancing our skills and need to imbibe the linguistic edge, because there arise too many a circumstances when the only language of communication between 2 people is the sign language.

It is now that I can appreciate my non-selection in a MNC manufacturing concern at Bangalore. I knew just a few words of direction to the auto guys. And the employees’ and workers in that industry were certainly not auto guys.

Sometime last week handling a recruitment case involved communicating to a certain person. The call was in process when the realization hit hard, that the only language he spoke fluently and was comfortable in was Tamil. This lead to a severe problem as a colleague had to be summoned for rescue work. However it was my job to communicate with the candidate and when we did meet face to face, that was the toughest time not just for the candidate, but for us the recruiters too. Narrating a particular excerpt where in we asked the candidate ‘Where he sees himself in the next 5 years?’ after a deep thought he answered ‘Provident Fund’! That made us realize we our terribly failing to put forward our point and lots of communication barriers developed. Sign language also couldn’t come to rescue when it came to technical domain expertise being tested. Though the candidate turned out to be good on the machine he handled, yet communication signals were completely distorted and meant much of noise in Engineering language.

Each passing day we as individuals keep trying to better ourselves and learning new things that could highlight our CV’s and such that it stands out among scores of others. Yet majority of us as recruiters who interact most with people, are restrained to basic 2-3 languages, relying heavily on English and Hindi. A day is yet to come when the Government of India could state Hindi is not just the National Language for the saying but impose it on all parts of the country as well without rubbing the wrong ends. So till then we need to get polishing our linguistic skills and maybe if we desire to attract talent from far and wide, we get ready to switch languages at the drop of the hat. A minimum of 5 to extend till down South, and if covering East and West is on our agenda, 5 more could add on to the list!

Predicament of a Recruiter

At one of the peak seasons of the recruitment drive, one fine morning the HR dept. gets a call from the Security guys’ stationed at the main gate. They pass on the information that a lady has come and is asking to meet the HR Manager. So they have let her in since she said she’s from a far off place, and she’s on the way to the HR Dept. Much to the departments’ surprise, there she is standing at the door; when half the folks are annoyed with the Security guys’ decision without being consulted. Yes a recruitment drive is in the process, but a walk-in wasn’t something that was welcome; after being overwhelmed with CV’s that kept pouring in every hour.

With the kind of atmosphere a manufacturing organization has, even one lady would raise enough eyebrows to be noticed. So while this lady walks into the room and is seated right across me, the next I expect is a CV laid out in front of me. But like it’s said, ‘Always expect the unexpected!’ she looks around painfully and giving uncomfortable glances, she places her purse on my table and walks out. And here I am looking at other colleagues who are equally quizzed with her behaviour. Twenty minutes and still no sign of her return, which triggers a sense of panic into us. I am contemplating of opening her purse and searching through her belongings and finding some identity of this mysterious prospective employee who wanted to so badly meet the Manager. A few hurried calls were made to the security guys and the reception, enquiring whether anybody has seen her roaming about the factory unit. And there the colleague at the reception confirmed, she saw her on the way back to the HR Dept., just 2 minutes back.

When finally she does enter the room, I start off my inquisitive notes directed at her. What we learn are astonishing facts of a person desperate to get employed in this downturn of economy! We get to know she’s originally from Kolkata, and has travelled all these distances to be in Bhilai just to chance upon getting herself employed someplace. She didn’t have any acquaintance or relative in and around Bhilai, and was put up in a Dharamshala. At a certain point of time a colleague asked her, whether her parents are aware of her ways of looking out for a job? Were they aware she was in Bhilai? She recently completed her MSW from Lucknow University and placements that didn’t happen, made her look over Internet for Companies across India, and she planned to visit every city of the country she could!

With the way she was dressed she looked from a good family, but the desperation that we saw in her eyes, were enough to shake each one of us. Maybe for quite few it was just another day, but for us as recruiters, turning her away became the most difficult task. At one point we got her talking to the HR Manager, coz he was good at mentoring and we felt she needed somebody old enough to tell her she get back home and quit roaming around like nomads. When she finally produced her CV, it became the most dismaying moment. It was just a plain sheet of paper, like the formats found in cyber café, which hardly bore some details of her. Being an HR and done a regular full time course in MSW, one would always expect a good CV if not a benchmark. And then we realised through her communication she was not just desperately waiting for employment to happen, she was mentally unsound as well. It started looking like a Herculean task to persuade her leaving the boundaries of the factory unit. And when she started begging to be allowed to do any kind of job, even as an attendant; it started feeling like loss of human dignity.

From Recruiters we were transformed at one instant into this other human being, who needed to show empathy. But that wasn’t enough, the Organizations interests were always primary to us, and no matter how much we tried being concerned of her well-being, it was always a deadlock situation for us. With more than 40 minutes spent in persuading her to leave, accepting her so called CV and agreeing to get back to get, when openings would come; finally the security guards were called to let her out. And with her being at the other side of the closed gates; within no time her CV was shred into pieces, yet the predicament of the recruiter remained!

Do Intrinsic Motivators Ensure Retention?

It is said that to keep an employee happy, and to achieve long-term employee loyalty and retention; it is not the money or the perks that counts. Rather it’s about giving them “Meaningful Roles”, which acts as an intrinsic motivator. 

The question that on a continuous pace keeps bogging a new employee is ‘whether he is contributing in the business of the organization?’ There are a number of times, when an organization is committed to recruiting a targeted number of people; however they do not have pre-defined profiles for the new employees. So imagining the extended honeymoon period, whereby a senior comes by and asks the new employee (specifically a fresher) to explore into doing some research work pertaining to XYZ topic; keeping the industrial sector as base; such that the ultimate tests of applicability do not involve employees of present employer. And in no way should the sample or population of the study involve interaction with the employees. And the outcome of the research will bear no change or implementation on the present employer.

Will the newly recruited individual be as enthusiastic to carry forward the research, compared to the time he thought some real work is coming his way – ending the long honeymoon period or the subject of study interested him always? And to add to the demeanour, if the reasoning supporting the initiation of the research comes as: An aid and reflection to his contribution in the previous organization; when fresh interviews are faced!

How long can we expect such an individual to stick on to the organization? Unless he has some compulsions in life or more or less is dead wood; he would wait for the right opportunity and a perfect employer who has pre-defined roles set for him; and who believe this individual can do wonders in helping the organization grow! Do we still require fulfilling targets or for a moment think about how we create first impressions about a work; that may mean passion to somebody; yet make them refuse to work on it?