Having worked with several Fortune 500 companies in my past 12 years in the IT industry, it is quite obvious that I have gone through several rounds of interviews and multiple joining and exit formalities. I also keep talking with various colleagues in non-IT industry about their hiring experiences and find a common problem when it comes to Mid / Senior level management hiring.
Most of the HR consultants even with several years of industry experience are not adequately trained to understand the hiring requirements and map it with the potential candidates skill-set. When the candidate receives the first call from the HR Consultant, the skill-sets being questioned is endless and the consultant just
does a blind job of asking the candidate about the skill-set without trying to understand the candidates' experience. The consultant just tries to go through a skills checklist provided by the Hiring Manager. HR Consultants in India seem to only do keyword search and shortlist candidates from job portals.
Most of the HR consultants even with several years of industry experience are not adequately trained to understand the hiring requirements and map it with the potential candidates skill-set. When the candidate receives the first call from the HR Consultant, the skill-sets being questioned is endless and the consultant just
does a blind job of asking the candidate about the skill-set without trying to understand the candidates' experience. The consultant just tries to go through a skills checklist provided by the Hiring Manager. HR Consultants in India seem to only do keyword search and shortlist candidates from job portals.
If the candidate is lucky enough to
make it to the first round of Interview with the India Hiring Manager, the
expectations set in are sky rocketing. Most of the India Hiring Managers expect
that the candidate possess skill-set which candidates even 5-10 years more experienced
than them will not possess. In India most of the IT Industry work on outsourced
projects and typically most of the candidates will never get an opportunity to
work on all technologies, which people outside India or to say few lucky people
in India get the exposure on. But that nevertheless means a candidate with 10+
years of experience will not be competent of managing new technologies. The
India Hiring Managers also ask too many skill-sets which may never be used in
the advertised roles.
Once the candidate has done through
several rounds of interview one of the common attitudes of the HR consultants
is not to have the courtesy to inform the candidate about the success or
failure of the interview. It has also come to my notice that many interviews
are just fake because ultimately that ends up with the role being fulfilled by
an internal candidate. There comes my question - if you have an internal
candidate why waste precious time of an external candidate? Some companies also
have no clarity on the number of interview rounds required; the number of
rounds just keep increasing as every round progresses. Last but not the least
is the position going on hold or a hiring freeze when many rounds of interviews
have already happened. Now comes my next question – why does a position go on
hold or a hiring freeze happen at the last moment? Is the hiring process so
unplanned…….. I don’t think so.
I have also gone through a couple
of interviews when I worked out of UK, but the process is much mature there and
the HR consultants are much more courteous and inform the candidate even if the candidate has
not been shortlisted. So it certainly seems that there is a big flaw in the
process somewhere in India which can only be fixed by the India Hiring Managers
and HR Consultants so that potential candidates get a pleasurable hiring experience.
I am quite sure that this article
will not be nicely taken by the HR Consultants and India Hiring Managers
reading this, but with this article I am quite sure things will improve in
future.
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