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!