Dr. Arvind Agrawal, Partner, Global HR Lead Partners, LLP is an executive coach and a consultant with extensive corporate experience having held senior leadership positions in leading organizations – Management Board Member and President, HR at RPG Group, Chief Executive Officer of Escorts Construction Equipment Business which also included initially Escorts JCB, Head of Corporate Strategy and Marketing function in Modi Xerox, Head of Human Resource Total Quality in Modi Xerox, Head of Management Development and Organization Planning in Escorts.

In recognition of his many contributions, Dr. Agrawal was awarded the National HRD Award in 1992. He served as the National President of National HRD Network during the year 2000 – 2002. Dr Arvind N Agrawal in an exclusive interview with SCIKEY shares his thoughts on talent acquisition challenges tactical approach to cater them.

The biggest challenge in Talent Acquisition is the alignment of job seekers and vacancies. There are hundreds of vacancies, and yet job seekers don’t know where these are available. That’s when the recruitment agencies enter, but it is still an unorganized marketplace. This mismanagement in alignment leads to long cycle time and in terms of hiring, you have to go through a ton of resumes to find one suitable candidate. However, this challenge is not new, and though technology has eased it, the problem remains.

Secondly, in India, mainly, companies hire candidates that are over-qualified for the job. Candidates study and bag degrees and recruiters take pride in flaunting those degrees. It may be that the post does not necessarily need those degrees, yet companies want to hire from major IITs and IIMs. A lot of this over hiring leads to higher attritions followed by disengagement, poor productivity etc. From the candidate perspective, they are vowed by the brand name rather than focusing on the work scope. While technology does help, it cannot do so if the recruiters or candidates disregard reality.

A good approach to solve these issues could be using behavior pattern analysis and differentiation in mass hiring from leadership hiring. While talking about hiring based on behavioral patterns, Dr Arvind, Global HR Lead Partners LLP, says,

He explains with an example of a friend in the service selection board. Two candidates were asked to name the states in India, while the first one proceeded to name them randomly, the second one named them in an orderly manner starting from top to bottom. If the recruiter is looking for a candidate who thinks in a logical way, the second candidate will be hired. The test is not to judge general knowledge but understand the pattern of thinking.

Whether it is verbal or written, you should aim for the results to be specific. This same rule applies while hiring senior leaders as well. In a Behavioural Interview approach, you are asking the person to demonstrate his/her capabilities by sharing specific examples. This gives a much-structured approach rather than going on your gut feeling.

Recruiters can do a more efficient job by using technology for mass hiring.

While attracting talent, one has to be more candid about sharing appropriate and honest information with the candidates. One has to go to roadshows, use social media in an elegant way to be visible as an organization to the potential candidates.

A few more methods could be, if a company is looking for a digital marketing candidate, it can perhaps see the candidate’s social handles and the way he/she uses the platform.

Such an approach automatically filters out the candidates for that respective job. Further, for passive candidates, companies should attempt connecting with relevant WhatsApp groups, referrals, social media etc. A referral is one big way of bringing in passive candidates, but for that, you need to connect with the right groups and professionals.

Parting Thoughts

To conclude, after you’ve done talent acquisition rightly, talent engagement should be on top priority.

The problem lies when at CXO level itself there’s a lack of commitment and the engagement is questionable.

One key message to HR fraternity

Focus on hiring the right talent, treat them with respect and in a transparent manner, empower them, engagement and productivity will follow.

About SCIKEY:

SCIKEY Talent Commerce Platform is a Managed Talent Marketplace that enables employers globally, to build manage productive teams. With its online platform powered by AI platform-enabled services, Intelligent Automation and patented “SCIKEY MindMatch” algorithm; it simplifies how businesses contract or employ the best quality talent anywhere, while focusing on leveraging the talent mindset (psyche) as their prime competitive advantage.

SCIKEY’s mission is to provide the best cost, plenty of choices unmatched convenience to the employers across the globe, in employing or contracting the best quality talent On Premise, Offshore as well as in a Remote engagement.