Relevant Experience Factor

It is fun on assignments which involves creativity. One could wonder the extent of creative skills possible on recruiting assignments. When a sector is dynamic, evolving and fast growing, client companies allow recruiting agencies the liberty to look for various options in the market. New roles; new positions; facilitates career moves across skills and sectors, thereby making the whole transition interesting to change seekers and facilitators.
 
I remember distinctly, with the Insurance sector liberalised in late 2000, we were exposed to recruiting in the exciting Insurance space. This space had till then invoked an image of the elephantine PSU, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India which is managed by the Government. The potential of business opportunities in the sector and the extent of career aspirations that were possible in this segment suddenly dawned on us when we met up with young Human Resource professionals from the newly launched  private life insurance joint venture company. 

The opportunity was exciting as we reviewed the database of experienced professionals from various other segments and uged them to explore the new option; as we got into dialogue with educational institutions to initiate freshers to evaluate new career avenues. The dearth of otherwise eager talent to manage this kind of business process, made it creative, fulfilling and meaningful to move people across sectors and skills and get them to accept good positions, career growth and better salaries.

Over the last year or so, with the sluggishness in various sectors, most companies are back to what we call as the relavancy factor. Probably for want of training time, they’d insist on evaluating resumes of candidates with just the similar experience, thereby reducing the role of recruiting firms to being mere resume pushers and end up hiring people only from the relevant sectors and with relevant skills. While such moves could result in short term gains of minimising transition cost of positions left vacant within a project, I believe it could have cascading effect over an extended period with monotony creeping in leading to attrition.

If time is not a serious constraint, client companies should push recruiting firms to offer candidates with relevant attributes and attitude, and not just relevant skills. Training specific skills may perhaps not turn out to be as expensive as attrition.

 

Moving On..

In the last six years of my consulting practice as a recruiter, I have had the privilege to interact with a few hundred people and transact their career movements. I’d in my posts share some interesting notes on these interactions. As a practice I would stick not to reveal name/organisation.

A challenge, we face as a recruiter is to believe in the stability of a candidates term in a position and map the natural growth from the position. It is very common to come across many who look for a change in job within short span of time of their joining new assignments (anything less than 6 months is usually considered very short span). Before discussing such profiles with a client, we get the candidate to explain us the reasons, and tend to believe in the reasons offered. The usual reasons include a role mis-match or the work environment not being as conducive as they would have expected.

More often in such scenario by the time they actually reach the interview rounds and discussion table, many tend to get wary of their own explanation on having had to look for a change. They probably over time introspect; during the process are not able to invoke the same conviction with which they began; and are eventually not able to get the prospective employer to see their point of view.

Weariness on self conviction at any stage of interview process actually jeopardises the candidature, irrespective of career levels. This holds as much good for being confident on technical skills as well as on personal skills.

The most cited reasons for rejection in personal interview processes are lack of energy, vibrancy and conviction. One could make the mistake of making a wrong move, even if it was un-intentional, but may not have the luxury of being able to rectify it, unless we are able to admit it; accrue honest reasons for such a move and carry on with conviction to another opportunity.