Can someone fix the Indian recruitment system
& the responsibilities of being a leader.
I was talking to a friend of mine who heads HR in a pretty big company. The talk started on a CV I had forwarded to him, that of a common friend we both knew pretty well. This friend of ours was super skilled but a classic case of ‘3 Idiots’ gone wrong [For all those unfamiliar, ‘3 Idiots’ was an Indian blockbuster movie with a premise of choosing your career on society’s expectations & the resulting perpetual confused state]. An alternative visual of his career could also be this excellent Zen Pencil comic , but imagine the comic’s protagonist trying to change career after Step 4.
Either way, we both knew this person was very talented and just needed the right opportunity. This is how the conversation went. “I agree he is very capable, but we only hire from IIT/IIM”. Isn’t your job to find the best skill match for the job requirement? “Yes, of course, but we still only hire from IIT/IIM” [Again for all those unfamiliar, IIT & IIM are India’s premier educational institutions, think Stanford]. Just to be clear, I have tremendous respect for my friend in HR — he is smart, has risen fast and is a capable manager. I have also worked with people from these premier institutions; some so phenomenal that they could do any task under the sun, and some a physical manifestation of Murphy’s Law itself.
My friend’s reasoning was that everyday he gets 50 CV with the stamp of a high pedigree institution, why/how would he go past them to filter anyone else.
I think that is a fair point to some extent. The competition for good jobs is very high and even after meaning well, you obviously cannot evaluate each candidate. You have to pick filters, and the most effective ones are educational background & prior companies. However, to me, the issue goes deeper than this on two levels.
- This is also the tried & trusted formula of “No one ever got fired for hiring McKinsey”. Once you get such a brand name, you have effectively pushed all responsibility for right selection to an event in the past. The person didn’t perform? “Oh well, what can you do, he was from X & Y.” This is a pretty effective technique of saving your hide from any accountability. The line manager saves his hide by putting the initial selection on HR. Why would the HR take any risk? Best option is to see if the candidate carries enough names in his/her CV to be able to shift the ‘responsibility of selection’ to someone else in the past.
- The second problem is systemic. Indian education system itself is broken;the students getting graduated are devoid of real world skills. The only skills they get are by working/training in high quality companies. How do you get in high quality companies? By being from a big name university. While this is a sad state in itself, the practical problem is that there are no ways of building/showing your skills. You are the sum total of the brands you have collected, and if these brands had no value, well tough luck!
None of the above is a groundbreaking revelation. The problems are what they are. The population is large, the competition high and the values confused. To some extent this will change with technology. I am a big fan of the MOOC revolution, where self motivation will allow you to build skills. I also hope that startups like HireArt.com become more prevalent, and evolve into better avenues for showing your skills.
It is just the eyes of those who matter that need to be open. Never ever in the history of mankind has “This is how it has always been done” been a good excuse. If you are leading a company, a team, then the way you act will get magnified exponentially because people will follow you. Don’t always choose the easiest road home, try something new — (Cliché alert) make a difference.
And if my HR friend reads this, don’t kill me — there are a lot of witnesses :-)
