Monday, 1 August 2011

The Essence of Recruitments

Needless to say, recruitment is a very important function being the first step of hiring effective man-force for the organization.
HR department has revolutionarily evolved in the corporate from last two decades calling for more specialized training into the field. Although there are hundreds of students who pass out with their master’s degree in HR, it is observed that there are very few people who meet the requirements of giant corporate. Also, it came out through many surveys that the ratio of HR to other employees is 1:107. The question arises about this giant difference in spite of bundles of professionals found everywhere.
It would sound very harsh that often student fail to become a true HR professional because their theoretical knowledge is not appropriate enough to the dynamic practical situations of corporate.
Research observations state that people fail in setting an understanding for the very first step that is recruitments. When the base is wrong you cannot expect the building to be strong. It can never be expected for a person to be a successful HR person if he is not successful at recruitments. Honestly I would say that at least recruitments do not require support of professional background because theory cannot teach the specification that the situation would demand. For being a perfect recruiter, factors are many, but requirement is only one – UNDERSTANDING.
There are three factors for which understanding has to be developed on first and foremost basis. First factor is “understanding of the company”. It involves understanding the nature of the company and the need of recruitments there. Second is the “understanding of the person in question” in sense of personal aspirations and judgmements. Third is the understanding of decisions to be taken on which depends career of many people as well as future of the company.
In this whole process, the only requirement is, understanding abilities based upon ones common sense. The professional degree can only affect the time taken to work this upon. But in absence of proper understanding even the professional background would not help at all.
So, from my side, hats off to all those recruiters who have been successfully providing jobs to many deserving people, and that too, without a professional qualification because I know what efforts it takes to do a responsible job like recruitments.   Surabhi Kale The Avenue

Saturday, 9 July 2011

Recruiter and Candidate visavis

An urgent position, requirement received at the last hour and the client requests (or indirectly orders) to line up candidates for interview the very next day…two options left; do all that you can because you are a recruiter or because you are a recruiter you have to do it anyhow.. K ..To be honest, I took it up as a responsibility rather than trying to be heroic and considering it as a challenge. Though the position was a junior level position and targeted candidates were people from lower pool of the industry; but I started my process with a usual flair which means, ”Impress, hype , convince and validate” .. I was pretty sure that I was contacting the right kind of candidates (matching the requirement) but to my biggest surprise none of them were ready for the offered position…

I was in a trouble (not a serious one but any kind of trouble is troublesome L),as I didn’t have much time to analyze where was I lacking, there were lot many thoughts literally screaming in my mind and compelling me to put the blame on the company’s rapport and give up; but then I knew that the brand was good enough ..so no chance I can drop the bomb on them, then what do I do.. I kept doing what I was doing,”impress, hype..” .still not even a single “YES” ..when I almost gave up and was not in a state to impress or hype anymore, all I could do was SIMPLY talk ..and ..then..

a very polite person from the other end started TALKING to me about the job I was offering him, he DISCUSSED with me what was missing in his present job profile and then I HELPED him to select this company and atleast try here for a much better prospect ..and being SIMPLE helped me this time. JFinally I was able to source (not many) but few good profiles and a sure candidate to close the position…and yes of course on the very next day as requested (or indirectly ordered) by the client.

Later in my self counseling session, I reminded myself that my job is more of human to human and not just a recruiter to a candidate. Sometime it works magically when you relate, understand, and help because this way you help yourself the most. No doubt, there are positions and people with whom you cannot be all that simple and that is where we have to remember again that our job is more of human to human (acting smart when needed and being simple where required). J       Vidushi Upadhyay.. The Avenue

Friday, 17 June 2011

creative thinking

A Teacher had given a discourse on creative thinking. Afterwards his disciples approached him and asked him to set them a problem that required them to think creatively. The sage gave them a sieve and asked them to fill it with water at the sea, nearby. They were gone for a long time. Finally he went down to the beach to see what they were doing, and found them seated morosely around the sieve.

They scrambled to their feet when they saw him.

“You’ve set us an impossible task, sir,” said the oldest of the disciples. “It’s just not possible to fill a sieve with water.”

“Are you sure?” asked the Teacher, picking up the sieve.

He waded into the water and threw the sieve far out into the sea. It sank.

“There!” said the Teacher. “It’s full of water now.”

“Sometimes it helps to step back and view the problem from a different angle.”

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

The Perfect Recruiter


What Exactly is the recruitment business all about????
It is not about producing  “n” units of “X” in day
It is not about teaching a bunch of kindergarten kids
It is not about analysis of profit and loss statements
It is not about selling a product to a gullible customer to meet your targets

The real picture of The Recruitment Business is however a very different story.
There is no time restriction
No thumb rule on how to do it
You are your own boss
Intangible targets can never be defined

The basic skill set that qualifies one for this business is relationship building skills, opening up to new people every day, Listen, Perceive and Understand, capacity to sustain long conversations with patience and above all ALWAYS remembering names. All again intangible, unmeasureable but productive looking to the bottom line

The common ”Outsider” perception of the business is to log on to job portals and downloading profiles and telecalling for conversions and this believe me  is a sure shot recipe for disaster…

The Magic Mantra for perfect recruiters is a combination of hard work, volume, trust, clear communication, emotion, empathy and sympathy and there is no thumb rule to do a great job. It Is all instinct and gut feeling and perfect self discipline to keep away from the evils of ready daylong internet access and having no fixed time frame in which an assignment has to be completed…… Herein lies the secret as to why there are not many real GOOD RECRUITERS

The few who follow and thrive on the magic mantra do succeed because they love their job and love working, they love talking to people about their jobs and life goals and if you are inspired to build your own recruiting success at every moment, even if no one is watching, you should know that you’re in the right career.




The Perfect Recruiter


What Exactly is the recruitment business all about????
It is not about producing  “n” units of “X” in day
It is not about teaching a bunch of kindergarten kids
It is not about analysis of profit and loss statements
It is not about selling a product to a gullible customer to meet your targets

The real picture of The Recruitment Business is however a very different story.
There is no time restriction
No thumb rule on how to do it
You are your own boss
Intangible targets can never be defined

The basic skill set that qualifies one for this business is relationship building skills, opening up to new people every day, Listen, Perceive and Understand, capacity to sustain long conversations with patience and above all ALWAYS remembering names. All again intangible, unmeasureable but productive looking to the bottom line

The common ”Outsider” perception of the business is to log on to job portals and downloading profiles and telecalling for conversions and this believe me  is a sure shot recipe for disaster…

The Magic Mantra for perfect recruiters is a combination of hard work, volume, trust, clear communication, emotion, empathy and sympathy and there is no thumb rule to do a great job. It Is all instinct and gut feeling and perfect self discipline to keep away from the evils of ready daylong internet access and having no fixed time frame in which an assignment has to be completed…… Herein lies the secret as to why there are not many real GOOD RECRUITERS

The few who follow and thrive on the magic mantra do succeed because they love their job and love working, they love talking to people about their jobs and life goals and if you are inspired to build your own recruiting success at every moment, even if no one is watching, you should know that you’re in the right career.




Wednesday, 1 June 2011

BASICS OF RECRUITING ....KNOW YOUR CANDIDATES


The first hour of the week , one of candidates is to be offered…………………cool a great way to start the week. Wait a minute why is my candidate being offered less than what they client could have offered
Two things……………. Either my understanding of offerings was incorrect or the candidate has undersold himself. Investigating into the matter showed both the situations to be accurate.

When into the recruitment business you go by gut feeling or you learn things over a period of time …. One thing you however HAVE to learn is knowing your candidate

When I thought out why things moved the way they did, I realize that in my anxiety to close on the position , I did not concentrate enough on knowing my candidate. I concentrated on just that this candidate was “THE MOST APT” resource for my client, this excitement on finding THE EXACT resource killed my natural process of discussing all aspects of offerings as communicated to us by the client…….including salary. This led to the candidate underselling himself either being more enthusiastic or desperate leading the client to hone down on package…..indirectly effecting  my revenues.

Down the line in the recruitment business one develops some valuable skills of perception, communication and nuance but a true professional, has to constantly endeavor to concentrate on the basics and upgrading existing skills. Professional development is essential for any successful career, more so in the case of recruiting, it’s a bit more complicated. Good recruiters are so because they have an intangible quality of insight and observation…not always a quality one can teach. 
Continuing to take a hard look at yourself on a regular basis is a vital part of being a true  professional.  That means capitalizing on those skills that make you successful and working on those that don’t.  Perhaps your weakness, like mine, is that you move too quickly when you know you have the right candidate.  Maybe it’s not keeping up with new recruiting trends like social media.  But whatever your particular rough spot as a professional, you owe it to yourself to identify and work on it…