Sudhir Dhar, Executive Director - Group CHRO, Motilal Oswal Financial Services

An Indian diversified financial services firm, Motilal Oswal Financial Services was formed in 1987 by Motilal Oswal and Ramdeo Agrawal after they acquired membership on Bombay Stock Exchange. The firm is known for offering a range of financial products and services.

Traditionally, hiring a candidate was very simple wherein a structured interview process would do the job. Unlike earlier, wherein; meritocracy & tenure based recruitments would be preferred, things are quite different now because of the market moving at such a fast pace. With changes happening across the industries, there is a need for the Human Resources department to continu­ously reinvent itself to cope with those changes. As per a study done by Gallup in 2019, 60 percent of the millennials at the time of the study were open to change if a better opportunity was pre­sented. The next gen is the Millennials and to attract these mil­lennials in the organization it’s key that you have identification of activities that you need to work upon.

"In order to make the talent identification process more meaningful & effective, it’s essential to look beyond the existing traditional methods of recruitment"

In order to make the talent identification process more meaning­ful & effective, it’s key that we look beyond our existing tradition­al methods of recruitment. To attract top talent into the company, the HR leaders will have to specifically look at 3 things;

• Methodology of Hiring
• Digitization
• Use of Artificial Intelligence

Methodology of Hiring
While hiring any candidate, there are 3 aspects that should be looked at - Competencies, Knowledge, Skill (CSK). With the need for possessing technical skills for a particular role; the need for having competencies has also increased. As per a study done by LinkedIn, 80 percent of the employers say soft skills is a very important aspect for selecting a candidate. While hiring, organi­zations must look at assessing the behavioural competencies of the candidate as the next big thing is the ‘Competency Gap’ and not the ‘Technical Skills Gap’.

Certain set of competencies should be designed along with job description so as to evaluate on these competen­cies during the interview process. This will help organiza­tions have a holistic understanding of the candidates po­tential & personality. There are various tools available in the market to analyze on these aspects. Such tools will also help the organizations understand the attitude, competen­cies and the behaviour patterns of the candidate which will thereby help them understand of how well he will use his knowledge & skills to do a particular job. HR can also ana­lyze the candidate’s culture fitment in the organization with such competency based interviews. When you evaluate a candidate on the competencies you can also predict his fu­ture performance & will not hire him basis gut feel but will hire him with facts & data points. Mapping competencies to specific job roles & conducting competency based inter­views is the methodology organizations should adopt as; it’s ‘All About Behaviours’ which drive the growth & success of the organization.

With the competency mapping, for recruiters to anal­yse the candidates basis the competencies; it’s important that the recruiters enhance their skills & capabilities to assess individuals on the competencies. The need for re­cruiters to develop with the change era & need of the hour is very high.

Recruitment Marketing
It’s a candidate driven market nowadays. The candidates pick the company and not vice versa. With such shift in power, it’s very important that the company brands itself in a manner wherein we have talent walk-ins. But when I say walk-ins, there is no physical walk-in of candidates that happens like earlier but numbers of clicks on the digital pages of the company define the interest level of the candi­date in the company. Thus, arises the need for Recruitment Marketing!

Recruitment Marketing is using marketing techniques for the selection process of a candidate. Recruitment mar­keting is a way of Creating Awareness about the organisa­tion & thereby developing Interest among the candidates.

Once the 1st 2 stages are crossed, the job shopper then be­comes an Applicant. Then is the Decision Stage wherein the company interviews and finally the organization Hires the candidate. Recruitment Marketing is the key in today’s era.

Recruitment Marketing has social media playing a big role in it. As per a study by Glassdoor, 51 percent of the job seekers find the best opportunity online. Like one of the recent hires at Deloitte of a 20 year old girl was basis her creative Instagram resume that she cre­ated. Industry is changing & there are newer ways where people are seeking for jobs. The need for ‘ON THE GO’ recruitment is very high from the candidate perspective. Hence, the organizations need to be very quick in adapt­ing to that change. Technology is affecting every aspect of our life 24*7. With Instagram, Google, Facebook all the sites providing an opportunity to reach out to candi­dates; organizations should be leveraging it more & more in the future.

Use of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence has been around for a long time, but its strengthening its position in the HR space in the recent times. With AI being in use, the need for human interven­tion shall be reduce drastically. The manual work involved in the process of recruitment; short listing resumes, reply­ing to messages, etc. can be done easily through the use of AI. Organizations are now investing in ChatBots on the ca­reer page of their website as assistants who converse with candidates on recruiters’ behalf & help them with job de­tails & help them with the hiring process. With the help of AI, the biasness involved in the interviewing process can be removed. For ex; if you do a video interview, AI can evaluate the candidates’ verbal and nonverbal cues, the algorithms in the AI help get a linkage between what candidates say & do in an interview, their job role, performance & skills. The facts and data points help select the right fit for the right job

Organizations will benefit tremendously with the ad­vancements in the recruitment space if they adapt to the trends that keep emerging the industry with their ability to find the best fit for the right job.