You must have come across articles on “How to nail that interview”, “ 5 questions one should never ask at any interview” , “Tips for grooming for an interview” etc. All these blogs are intended to help the job seeker. It is assumed that the employer is at an advantage. Not true for SME’s like the one I run.
Now, for some context. I own & run a mid-sized recruitment firm with over 500+ FTE’s. I always need to hire more, and quickly. We do weekend drives, talk to campus placements, post on social media, etc., in an effort to hire talent from the metros. The truth is, the cities have too many companies battling over too few. Every youngster who is smart, thinks logically and communicates well is strutting around with multiple job offers. This bidding war cannot work for SME’s such as us. So we decided not to bring the talent to our doorstep, but to go where the talent is.
If the covid misery has taught us one thing, it is that we can work virtually. The slackers will always find water-cooler time even when they come to work. The sincere ones will always hunker down and battle with their goalposts, even if they work from home. The trick is to find that sincere player.
And that brings me to the perils of hiring through the classical process of interviewing.
How do I identify a sincere worker based on just 30-40 minutes of conversation? All candidates put on a good show, try and put their best foot forward. What are your strengths.. a voluminous list is spelt out. Your weaknesses? “Oh, I’ve always worked too hard”. “I am too modest..”. Today, youngsters are smart in saying what they think you want to hear. “Yes, I can work with difficult clients”. “Of course I can handle 12 hour days. Just bring it on”.
I have studied body language. I have fine combed through their resume. I have trick-questioned. I have been aggressive, gentle, probing, cynical. But after 27 years in this biz, I am yet to arrive at the solution of “How to assess well in an interview”
At some point, I gave up trying to find an answer. There IS no solution. No formula. Nothing. It can be a hit or a miss. Your best intuition about a candidate could go disastrously wrong a few months down the line. I decided if all interviews are just an honest attempt at stumbling in the dark, I may as well give up and blindly hire based on resumes.
Until……
I began talking to candidates from upcountry locations. I recently interviewed a girl from Lalgudi. The nervousness I saw was a refreshing change from the practiced smoothness of a big city college student who has been polished through workshops. When she did not know the answer, she was honest enough to admit ignorance, which was alarmingly frequent. There was a definite economic need which added to her anxiety. There was no “take me or leave me” arrogance. What she lagged behind in communication skills, she made up for in authenticity.
“Hire for attitude, train for skills” has been my mantra. So with the plethora of talent in upcountry locations- raw, unpolished diamonds such as they were- we set to work – to target talent from tier 3 cities and small towns.
Luckily for me, our biz models lends itself well to remote working. So all we need to do is find those rough diamonds in Shimoga or Araku. A concerted drive to source from such markets paid off. As I write, this is an ongoing effort. An MBA/but housewife from Chhattisgarh is one of my most productive employees till date. An account manager from Vijayawada in AP actually helped revive several lapsed Mumbai-based accounts. Geography is now history!
As a battle-scarred veteran in recruitment, I have realized that the youngsters in tier 3 cities & small towns do not need trick-questioning, behavioral assessment or deep probing. They are transparent and charmingly naïve. What you see is what you get. And in my opinion, what you get is pretty darned good!
It took the pandemic for us to get creative in hiring.
This is a call out to all those hiring managers of corporate India- there is immense, sincere talent available in rural India. Just look!
