Recruitment- A Process to cope with Rejections

Recruitment- A Process to cope with Rejections
In today’s world the ratio of rejection over selection is increasing day by day. It is important for us to know how we should simultaneously handle selected and rejected prospects.
As, a matured and responsible individual of this society we should display the similar kind of kindness and courteousness to all the prospects who come to us (organization) irrespective of selection or rejection.
They should be treated like “How we want our self to be treated “, they should be treated like our other equally important customers.
Technology in this era has transformed our lives so much; it may land up acting as a catalyst in the process.
To begin with organizations may engage prospects in various stages by sending auto emails or even suggesting them areas of improvement. A Pragmatic approach has to be owned by organizations.
Example: There are 100 people applying for 5 positions, ultimately only 5 the best will be selected,
95 will walk out with dejection. Those 95 has to be handled with professionalism. If we are able to personalize every snippet then nothing like it. WOM (Word of Mouth) is the strongest tool to brand whether positively or negatively.
Let’s pre-empt and join our hands to educate the prospects who did not make it and show them the right way in achieving their goals.
Are you with me?

A Lesson learnt on Recycling-BYOB / BYOC

A Lesson learnt on Recycling-BYOB / BYOC

My Singhad Trip- a Lesson learnt on Recycling
It was a Sunday lazy morning, 8th December 2013, for anyone it would be a day to relax and enjoy the programs on television. But as promised to my wife woke up and was ready for the trip by 9:30 am. The jaunt was full of fun moments to cherish for life time.
While returning from the Singhad fort, my wife sighted a place where fresh green vegetables were sold in abundance. Vendors claimed they are fresh and just brought from the farmers. We were enticed
To buy, which we did latter. During the process, Commoners were buying and negotiating hard with the vendors. Amazed to see commoners carrying bags made of clothes from their homes and not demanding plastic bags from the vendors. On the contrary, people from the urban are always seen asking for the Plastic bags from the shopkeepers, vendors etc. As they say “Most worthwhile things do involve some work”.
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is prevalent in many organizations. Why can’t we apply the same theory while buying vegetables, fruits etc. Can be termed as BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) OR BOYC (Bring Your Own Container). Bring your own container in which to take the food home. Or, the store gave you a container which you had to give back later.
Let’s be little responsible and start right now avoiding polythene bags/ utensils/plates made of plastics. As, plastics take much longer time to decompose, which in result is harmful for the environment and our “Mother Earth”.
Better Late than never….Are you on board ?

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Taking prospect to the water is " Recruiter's job", but the trending is you have to make the
prospect thirsty and one can do that by adding a bit of salt in his food.

Do you know when to schedule your interview with Hiring Manager?

Do you know when to schedule your interview with Hiring Manager?

This is for all people who believes you have it in you but still unable to crack the interview. I am not telling you about grooming tips, communication tips or any other X factor which you help you succeed.
This article will be helpful for candidates appearing for interviews.

I have seen a pattern of not selecting someone or selecting a candidate during interview drives. Mind you, I am giving a generic view but this works on your psychology of the Hiring Manager.

Well, a thought triggered when I was back in Baroda (My hometown) last winter. People from Tibet come and make their set up to sell winter wears. Good and cost effective buys. Shops were in vertical fashion, one next to another. At times when you stand and see and ask for some jacket, the shopkeeper would politely say “Sir, not ours, you need to ask the other shopkeeper “. You can term it as open market or window shopping. You would see many people just coming trying winter wears and moving on to the next shop.

Huge number of people would pour into the premises and while they enter, they would just see clothes,
Jackets, accessories and move onto the next shop. Once they reach halfway they start negotiating and buying some clothes. Since, I had nothing to buy & was just accompanying my family, I observed this pattern very carefully that people actually just see clothes in first few shops and then while they are in the midway they start buying.
This triggered a thought, in Recruitment drives, when we start the interviews, while showcasing profiles,
Resumes to Hiring Manager will not select candidates in the first few interviews. He would start selecting candidates once he is in the halfway through. There are always exceptions.

It might happen that one visits for interview on a weekday, unknowing of the fact that people in Corporates are always found busy in the first half of the day. Chances of getting through are little less
In that case. I would suggest going in the second half of the day, where the HM is settled down in his work, one gets time for actual conversation. Does not mean, morning time is not a good time, however
That depends on circumstances. Example: If you are aware, that the project is a UK based, then the person might be available in the first half to have a real conversation, rather one sided conversation
Which might not be great in terms of a candidate? So, do a minimum check of project geography,
This will give you a fair idea about the time, when HM is available to have that real conversation.
Mind you,There are exceptions everywhere.

Bullish & Bearish : Recruitment

Bullish & Bearish: Recruitment
I am not pointing out the Rising and Falling of Stock prizes. People in HR / Recruitment may relate to what I am writing. Some pointers you may consider while Recruitment is Bullish or Bearish.
Firstly let me give you a holistic view on Bullish / Bearish: Recruitment. Bullish is means when the ample of opportunities to fill. Bearish means the slack time in Recruitment.
Bullish is the time when Recruiters are occupied with Sourcing, Interviewing, on boarding resources.
Bullish is the time when recruiter gets hands on. It’s the time when individual is recognized for efforts
Put in to hire resources. It’s the time where we do not have time to think about up skilling. It’s the time
Where people do not look for job changes, Recruiters are highly occupied with work, late hours,
Weekend drives, number pressure etc.

Bearish is the time when there are less opportunities to fill. It does not mean Organization is not doing well. Organization might go in reconciliation mode to review their headcount. It’s the time when Hiring Managers are in hibernation, relooking their strategies, re-evaluating their TOM ( Target Operating Model). This is the time to relook our strategies, aspirations, strengths, and weakness as an individual.
Individual gets time to relook on their performances. We may look at our style or identify our trend to close an opportunity.
Time to up skill in other areas, may be making use of other departments within HR.
I have learnt that no learning goes waste, hence revisiting management workshops which can be helpful in doing the job.
Bringing innovative ideas on the table that makes difference to the trend of hiring, or department. These things will act as a catalyst in meeting ambitions. Make use of other teams to cross skill and earn brownie points.
Trending is , making your own niche in the market. It’s like marketing yourself. Colgate is the brand which has ruled in Indian market. Colgate launched its campaign as a germ killer; it did not do as expected.
Colgate though through and re-launched its campaign as a Toothpaste which protects your teeth for 12 hours and the sales went up.
Bearish is not time to look for job changes, it’s an opportunity to up skill and reinvent ourselves.

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A Real Leader is the one who creates more " Leaders " and not Followers.

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Dont Delete things from your life, Add things in your life.

Self-Belief

                                                        Self-Belief

It is the Self Belief which takes you far. I am not saying that skill, domain expertise, confidence,

Attitude etc. is not required to do the job. If you mean that I am guilty of my faulty communication

And sorry for your selective listening.

Let play a small game! Are you all ready? Okay… I assume so.. no cheating please.

Close your eyes and follow my instruction.

     Don’t think about your Mom

         Her image should not come while you closed your eyes.

        Don’t at all think about your mother

Okay now open your eyes, what did you see?

I am sure everyone saw their Mother’s image.

About 60,000 ideas (And that is scientifically proved) come in your brain every day, no one has control over it.No one in this world can control thoughts, but what they can control is they feel about self. And your brain only understands images. It does not understand words.  Try it..

Close your eyes again and follow my instructions…
     ABCD
     SDF
     GGB

Now open your eyes, did you see any images, I am sure No.

Our mind understands images and not words.
I am sure some of you must have heard story of Elephant.
A Baby elephant tied to a rope , tries a lot to break it. Baby elephant makes a lot of attempts to break free but unable to set himself free.
The same baby elephant grows big and becomes a big Elephant, What I see tied to the same
thin rope. The elephant can set himself free easily but not even attempting once to break it.
Why ?
Because in his early days, Elephant tried and tried a lot to set free.
But now when he has grown big, What if someone goes and tell in his ears that " Elephant, you can break the rope easily, just breaking it once " !
What will happen, Elephant will break not only one rope but thousands of rope like this. He just have to attempt it once.
Similary, it is our belief which is holding us back, Its just we have to attempt to do and we can do it.
If you think that you are successfull, you will become successfull one day.

I am attempting to say that, what you see, what you hear, What say is not important.

Most important thing is what you feel about yourself.

If you feel good about self, that will take you far.

If you don’t feel about self, that will take you nowhere.

Feel good about self….

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“ If you remember your employees as ID badges, they will remember you as Robots “

                                                                                                                                Dhaval Upadhyay

Execute “ Execution” in Corporates

Execute “Execution” in Corporates
Mind is such a supercomputer that it throws new ideas every second.
Point is how many of ideas are executed till the end. In other words, how many innovative, new
Ideas fizzle in the midway. It is important to draw a plan in any field in order to achieve the end goal.
Even if you are a scientist, sports person, Entrepreneur drawing plan is the first step towards your
Goal.
In Corporates, it is very easy to pop up with a new idea, but a little challenging to bring it to logical
End.
Here are some tips to execute your plans:

Communicate:
Proactively discuss plans with team mates and take their points in consideration.

Explain them as why the change / implementing a certain process is important.

Give them tangible numbers, once the plan is active, what they can achieve? Example: Increasing sales, increasing efficiency, quality etc.

Make them part of the process; don’t make them feel you are taking feedback just for the sake of it.

Establish role and responsibility to each one of them, don’t force them into it.

Give timely progress updates as they feel connected to the change.

You have to be everyone on the same page and walk through.
Overcome Hurdles:
People perceive change in different ways. Change can be disruptive or might upset people in
your team. Some people are not use to change and they are used to work in their comfort zone.
They might upset your rhythm of implementation.

Be ready to answer all their queries and try to motivate them towards achieving end goal.

Understand your plan thoroughly and anticipate questions before hand and be prepared to take those questions.
Even though you have studied your plan at your best knowledge, there might be some resistance, so be patient and put straight facts on table, continuously resell what Organization,
Team will benefit out of it.

Plan B :

Develop a crystal clear goal of your project.

Develop cost, and timeliness of the project.

Understand how your idea will affect other areas / departments.

Develop how you will handle tricky areas of your plan.

Design action items in detail, Assign owners, and strategize who will do what and when.

Set a time frame of the complete project

"Bridging Industry Academia Gap ?”

Rupee tumbling, an Onion price on hike, Political scene is uncertain, People to blame Global markets

the cause of economic downturn. Companies slashing  jobs.  Freshers waiting for their 2^nd innings

of life to start i.e,  Getting a dream job. Job for a fresher has become an extreme challenge,

where as Companies say they do not find enough skilled labour in the market. Whom to blame ?

Companies creating “Centre of Excellence” ( COE) in colleges,building Labs etc, the idea is great, but the point is how many times do we go in the college and share the knowledge, upcoming technologies, do white papers, Real time projects etc. Every industry , every corporate, every company should make it a mandate, their

SMEs should visit campus atleast once or twice a month and address the crowd. There are various

Speakers who are actually doing it. We should leverage even the SMEs ,domain expertise people from 1 to 5 years’ experience range should go and  share their view, Real time project challenges, solutions to those etc.

Industry –Academia Gap is widening day by day, this cannot be reduced overnight. It is a process and

Will considerable amount of time. Many corporates have CSR as an vital function, We should not restrict

CSR to differently abled people, We should also leverage SME’s and Domain expertise regularly visiting

Colleges.  How many times does a Freshers are not even greeted by anyone from the company and asked to leave from the office gate ? More and more batches from colleges should be encouraged to visit the working environment, also can overview a corporate life by including “ Buddy Programs” etc., within the guidelines of the company.

I feel this will be an important step from corporates to reduce “Industry-Academia” gap considerably.

I feel Corporates should start institutes, colleges which will impart real time scenarios to students. Let them have a profit margin, atlest freshers will learn live scenarios, projects etc.

How to Say Good Bye to Employees ?

How to send off employees in Organization?

Employees remember their first and the last day in organization. Ideally first day is happy and the last day where employee runs various desks to get clearances from departments.

Submitting laptops, handover id badges, clearing finances etc. Team / Manager does not remember to wish a special Good Bye. Above image depicts last Test Match of Rick Ponting and this is how he was

Applauded by opposite team for his accomplishments and contribution to the game.

Employee is busy meeting HR in a clumsy meeting room and filling boring forms. Any feedback he wants to give while leaving and the reason whatsoever is that even discussed ? Not sure !

Team / HR can gather and give a respected exit to their teammates, Don’t do it for every employee else

It becomes an overkill. List out for employee exit as per their tenure / experience / contribution etc.

I have not seen a forum where Ex-employees can gather and discuss about various topics etc.

“ Alumini , how it used to be in colleges “. I feel there should a forum where Ex-employees can meet

Periodically and share opinion. This will increase Boomerang rate for their company and I feel company

Should be judged by their Boomerang percentage, which can also become most sought after company,

Or a Great Place To Work.

Strategic IT Volume Hiring

                                         Strategic Information Technology Volume hiring  !

Everyone curious to know Strategic Volume hiring ? Let me start by asking what is hiring ?, you may say

Right person, Right Job at the Right place ? Well, you are marginally near. Are you aware what it takes

To achieve the 3R’s.

This is a basic work flow of Hiring.

                                                        Requirement àSourceà Selectà OfferàHire

End result for everyone is to hire a quality resources. 

Ø  Stop being reactive and start being Proactive. If you are aware that a certain project gives “X” number of requirements then build a healthy pipeline for a particular skill.

Ø  Strategize your staffing needs by having periodic meetings with the Account Managers / Project Managers. Work on weekday / Weekend panel availability etc. Rather give a plan to the Hiring Manager to fulfill the demands in stipulated time.

Ø  Simplify your hiring process. Do not show each and every profile to panels for screening.

Example: You know the basic criteria; schedule them as per availability, needless to say

Not to compromise on the quality.

Ø  Sourcing will play a key role here and your experience on hiring particular technology.

Ø  Define your goals very effectively with the Hiring Manager , which will prevent miscommunication and errors. Set expectations with your HM.

Ø  Follow a team based approach rather than individualistic approach. Have a focused group of recruiters/contractors/Fresher and allocate work accordingly.

Ø  Try and prepare a questionnaire from the project team and do the basic checks efficiently for

Candidates. If the crowd is more than anticipated, then you might design a Written Test as a filter.

Ø  During the Interview day, address the crowd on periodic intervals, this way candidates will not

Lose interest. Prepare a company Handbook which can be circulated during their waiting time.

Ø  Move your sourcing desk far from your interview area. Capacity of the candidates is not there to

Make them sit, put a temporary stop to the Screening activity. This way your screened and unscreened candidates will not be at the same place.

Ø  Sensitize panels before the Drive so that the goal is clear. Try to have a call with the project team to understand the pulse and put your points precisely.

Ø  One need to put timelines to various sources sending profiles to your inbox. Example : For a weekend drive, Thursday morning the sourcing would stop and you would focus on scrutinizing and initial checks on the resumes received.

Ø  Make your panels gather at one place on the interview day and brief them about the process. Process means, you/ your team would give resume, he can call the candidate directly in his cabin, if candidate is select make him wait else ask him to leave for the day( HR would get back). If Hold, discuss with the HR spoc.

Ø  Try and automate your process by doing written Test , GD etc. or by even using any ERP. That itself is a separate topic to discuss at length on which ERP to use.

Ø  Lets take a scenario : 80 Technology positions, How to fulfill ? Lets go step by step.

Ø  Brief meeting with Hiring Manager to understand the Job role.

Ø   

                                                 Example :

Positions	Avg Ration as per Market
2 Offers	1 Joiner
2 Offers	4 for Final round
4 Final Round	6 1st round Technical select
6 1st round Technical select	12 candidates
12 candidates to walk in	24 Candidates scheduled
24*80=1920 Candidates	1920 Candidates
1920 / 4 Weeks=480 candidates per week	480 Candidates per Week

What will you do to have 480 candidates walking in per week? I will cover this in my next Blog.

How to Deal with Life After Campus ?

                                          “Solution to Life After Campus “

Getting admission in engineering colleges is a dream of any ambitious student. While studying in college

Student is almost unaware of cut throat competition outside. Not aware of the Tsunami going to hit after the college.

I hope this Article may help the Students  in some positive way. Life becomes too dull, gloomy in the process of searching or getting a job in your dream company. Life becomes a bit challenging in tier 2 and

Tier 3 cities in Tier 2 / Tier 3 Engineering Colleges at times. Need to admit fact that everyone will not get admission in IITs and NITs etc. Studying in Tier 2 / Tier 3 city is something to be proud of.

Students from small cities come in the real world and conquer the world. They have dream in their eyes

And a lot of positive energy around. Most popular example I can think of is our Indian Cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. People know his achievements in his field. Similarly, there are many which can be named.I will not talk about any famous personalities, I will straight away come to the point

About dealing with “ Life after Campus”. 

ü  Pay utmost care to your projects, don’t make project just for the sake of making it. When I say utmost care it means, be involved in the complete SDLC(Software Development Life Cycle) of the project. Take help from seniors, alumni on their projects etc. Don’t repeat what the seniors have made. Always have the gist of your project ready in your interviews.

ü  Be Innovative in making projects, ask questions to yourself, why are you making it ? What are you making ? How will the project help ? What are you trying to automate and will that really help ?

This will be a bit challenging and will give you real time exposure in making a project.

ü  Get actively involved in Campus Recruiting activities, and interacting with alumni, this will give you a a lot of Exposure of Real World. Many companies come to Recruit in your college for other streams, give them your helping hand.

ü  The most important aspect where Companies do not come for campus interviews is making use of Social Media. Leveraging Social media and getting connected in various communities will be of a great Support. Get introduced to various people like Recruiters, Domain expertise etc. People will be ready to lend their support. Networking is the key.

ü  Work Part time, or get involved in an Internship program. Even work for free. This will increase your Knowledge bank , Experience in the Real World.

ü  If possible enroll for any of the training courses, which will be of additional help while appearing for interviews. Example: Get enrolled in Java, Testing,  or SAP courses etc based on your competency.

ü  Resilience and Attitude : Something which needs to be imbibed.  World is so dynamic, experience professional worked in Oracle 10 G earlier and now Oracle 11G is in practice. The attitude to “ Learns and Unlearn “ things will help you to swim in the deep end.

ü  Enhance on basic Communication: Try and watch more & more English News Channels, this will not only improve your current affairs knowledge but also enhance your English speaking

Skills. This may sound a bit silly to a few of them, but it works. Companies look for a basic

Communication skill from an Engineering student. And this will serve as an important ingredient.

Dhaval View2020: " Spring of Concept "

Dhaval View2020: " Spring of Concept ":                                                             “Spring of Concept “ Now a days we will see a trend of sourcing new and in...

" Spring of Concept "

                                                            “Spring of Concept “

Now a days we will see a trend of sourcing new and innovative ideas within the organization .

Current deficit being so high, India taking an economic down turn, petrol prices on a rampant, more and more companies will see their staff in engaging some or the other activity. Making a business idea will be one of them. Companies with a stable growth or startups who want to get into a completely new product development will see this change. Running a campaign and bringing it to a logical conclusion will be a challenge. Though Leadership will play an important role to nurture the idea like any other Business Leader would do. It will form an integral part of Recognition programme and / or Engagement framework.

This will a huge morale boost to employees as employees will also feel belongingness in their companies. People would really feel nice as if they contributed to the growth of organization. This will create a win-win situation and a positive environment as a whole. Rewarding employees is always on the agenda of companies where this will also serve as a catalyst in  recognizing employees. This will give a rise to a healthy competition within the nucleus which is always good for BAU(Business As Usual).

Hello Folks,

I will start posting my Blogs on HR to start with.