Recruiting- the battle for talent!!

In my earlier posts, over the past couple of years, I have touched upon different tactics adopted by some hiring specialists across the world!

Well..the market is waking up. Want to know what all is happening?

Some companies like GE farmed talent. A bunch of Indian companies widened their net to identify talent! Some other have changed the way they look for talent...by designing new roles to take responsibility to reach out to the community at large!

Auto majors in India, are cross pollinating talent from FMCG, Telecom, IT and Engineering to beef up their sales! We come across examples like the fast growing hospital groups icon Dr Shetty growing talent recently hires 5 "CEOs-in-waiting' to avoid chasing elusive & expensive lateral hires!!

One can see the job portals getting into the social networking tactics! Socialmedia giants collaborating to improve stickiness and add value ..

We at Options, are trying to hone our skills based on the first principles of sourcing-and are fortunate to work with a bunch of exciting clients -who appreciate the need for identifying a pipeline of talent innovatively, and willing to have their 'skin in the game' even at the risk of moving away from the regular norms/trodden path...

We are working on some assignments designed to help identifying and engaging passive candidates of Indian origin, presently employed overseas, in a bid to convert them as hires for the growing global development centres in Hyderabad.

We have had occasions to conduct online surveys to help research the perceptions of jobs in certain industries, willingness to relocate, as well as get some insights into their preferences for possible employer brands they would like to be associated with!

Options is also fortunate to be part of NPA, The Worldwide Recruiting Network-that gives us access to over 400 similar minded professional recruiters -across the 6 continents, who have been in business for more than a decade-in their respective specialised practices- that helps us with an extended reach-not to mention of the additional flavour of understanding the cultural nuances..whiling hiring locally-across the globe :-)!

In a bid to try to try and build relationships, and engage professionals on a regular basis, even as they are not interested in changing jobs, we at Options, are investing in efforts to keep in touch with our network-by using the latest social media tools.

Menwhile -we are all hoping that a lot more hiring managers would not just think of cost of hire..but also the quality of hire!! It might just help to have the star on your side, right :-)!?

PS- Of course, there are some who still remind us of the story of General Cluster's Last Stand- which is very well captured in the illustration below :)!!

Did I hear you say, Amen?

Unravelling the myths of Sourcing!!

Here is an interesting story I like to tell all my contacts in the recruiting fraternity-time and again!!

One night a neighbor of Mullah Nasruddin was walking home and found Mullah squatting on the ground beside a lamppost evidently looking for something.

"What's the matter mullah?" asked the concerned neighbor.

"I have lost my keys" replied mullah

"Oh! Here let me help you." and the kindly neighbor got down on his knees and started searching for Mullah's keys as well.

After some time spent looking the neighbor straightened up and quite puzzled asked "are you sure you dropped your key's here?"

"Oh, I didn't drop them here." replied Mullah.

"Where did you drop them ?!?" exclaimed the now bewildered neighbor.

"Over there" and Mullah pointed to the front of his house that was darkness.

"So why are you looking for them here ??!!??" shouted the angry neighbor.

"Because there is light here." replied mullah.

He who seeketh, findeth?

“People, People, People..".I cannot remember the number of times I have heard several CEOs (of prospective clients) say “ Are the bottleneck that prevents our business from growing”! We have a great product, wonderful clients, more enquiries coming in...and the if we need to scale up, we just cannot find the right type of folks joining us”!

While one admits it is not rocket science –some others debate recruitment is an art!

Either way, one has to be pretty sure what one is looking for!!

Believe me-it has been 18yrs into the business, most enquiries one comes across are ‘almost telegraphic in nature. A designation with about 2-4 words in it-and then almost reluctantly, (as if constrained by the twitter syndrome of restricting one’s expression to 140 characters)..one is fed some more generic and cliched qualifications-before signing off with ‘good attitude, communication skills...”

Well, if we are lucky, we would be handed down a ‘job description’ with verbose keywords, with a comment” we want someone very urgently..as of yesterday!!” One would be surprised how similar most templates are..running into a dozens of lines, triggering a vague suspicion if it was indeed a clever ‘cut n paste’ operation.

A typical contingency recruiter is brought in, along with a bunch of third party recruiters, to expedite the hunt- after an internal team has combed extensively the low lying fruit -only to get into a game of ‘who pressed the buzzer first”-as usually the credit is given to the first person who sources the resume!

Isn't there more to sourcing??

I would like to point to a great presentation made by Moises Lopez in a ERE seminar a couple of years ago. Here is a road map we can all adopt?

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