Niche Talent: Where is it? Date:   Thursday , May 05, 2011 Last year, when Naukri re-introduced its popular advertisement character, HARI SADU, it was an indication of the fading recession blues and the job street opening up with opportunities galore. Today a year later, the job market, across sectors, especially IT/ITeS continues to grow and opportunities are increasing multifold. Staffing services firm Manpower's recent Employment Outlook Survey showed that employers in India have the strongest hiring intentions for the 2011 second quarter. India's net employment outlook — an indicator of recruitment intentions — rose to 51 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the three-month period starting April. The same stood at just 43 per cent for the first three months of this year. Reflecting the bullish employment market, companies in India plan to recruit new personnel at a hectic pace over the next three months. But here is the difference! The key word is not quantity but quality. Having learnt the lesson the hard way during the downturn, organizations today are moving away from the massive hiring spree they once took and are rather concentrating on tapping niche talent. With jobs abound but niche talent pool limited, the companies now are exploring new avenues of finding and recruiting talent. The HR/Recruitment and marketing teams have donned their thinking hats and are reworking their recruitment strategies to win the talent war. From traditional methods to tapping the social networking as a new platform, recruiters are leaving no stones unturned. Tapping Niche Talent Pool – A challenge! The hiring scenario has witnessed dramatic changes in the past decade with companies facing increasing talent crunch especially due to new sectors such as retail coming up on the horizon. And IT-ITES sector, considered to be the most lucrative from an employee’s point of view, has bore the biggest brunt of this transition. While every company is on the look out for niche talent, the meaning of the word varies from company to company. Explaining about this, Ramesh Kumar R, SVP – Strategic Operations, Symphony Services says, “Today, it is very easy find a candidate with a wide experience in C/C++ programming or an expert on SaaS business model, but what is difficult to find is a person with an in-depth knowledge of both C++ and SaaS. This is what one means by niche talent.” The challenge to hire niche talent is much higher amongst product engineering companies than that faced by the IT services players. According to a report by NASSCOM, less than five percent of the 150,000 engineers who enter the IT industry every year get in to product engineering space. This leaves product based companies a very small talent pool to choose from. The demand-supply gap is especially widening rapidly in this space. “For a company like SAP, 75 percent of the hiring is for professionals with core SAP technology expertise. While there a lot of companies that have SAP practice, there is only one company, i.e. SAP that focuses on product engineering. For us to find an SAP experience professional is a huge challenge,” says Anil Warrier, Director - India Staffing at SAP Labs. “Furthermore, senior professionals like product architects, today are very passionate about the technology they work on and want to be a part of the complete product life cycle. Hence, it is quiet difficult for us to make some one leave in between and join us,” he adds. Due to such challenges, lot of MNCs today have realized that if one has a senior position vacant, they must not limit their search to the pool available locally. There are a lot of senior professionals across the world looking out to relocate to India and this opens up a much larger pool to search from, something that Warrier’s team is making use of. The same is the case in the semiconductor space as well. Analog Design, System Architect and System Engineering are some of the skills where companies experience a talent crunch. “To bridge the gap in some of these areas, we have been working closely with many universities in the country and help them with setting up of labs so that students get opportunities to work on practical aspects as a part of their coursework. We also help universities to periodically revise their syllabus to ensure that students are studying the most updated technology and the latest breakthroughs during their study years,” tells Sanjay Bhan, Director – HR, Texas Instruments. Employee Referrals: Cutting the chase short For years, companies have been depending on three main sources to attract/search talent — Newspaper Advertisements/Job Fairs, Recruitment Firms/Consultancies and Job Portals. Though these still continue to be the major avenue for sourcing talent, companies have started to heavily rely on employee referrals. For any company, to hire talent, it is important to build its employer brand and who can be a better ambassador for a company than the employees itself. “Employee referrals work great since, your employees can help you line up suitable candidates, especially because having worked in the organization, they know what the company is in the look out for. We have seen much better quality of candidates being sourced through the referral program than other sources,” says Niranjan Nelamangalam, VP - People Department, Aditi Technologies. A common practice is to ask an employee to refer his friends/ex-colleagues during the induction process. “But we do not stop at just that. While the recruitment teams starts working on the leads provided, the employee too is kept continuously updated on the status of the leads provided by him/her,” says V A Rangarajan, Recruitment Leader, IBM India/South Asia. The employee “source mix” varies depending on the company, but the percentage of hires through the referral channel in niche product firms can be as high as 50 percent. But these referral programs are no less than a jackpot for the employees themselves. With the cliché “war for talent” a reality, companies are doling out cars, bikes, game consoles, iPods, plasma TVs, gold biscuits and even foreign trips to employees who refer candidates successfully. These incentives are accompanied by hefty cash rewards as well. In most organizations, the cash incentives range from Rs 10,000 at the lowest level to over Rs 75,000 for critical positions. A while back, MphasiS carried a special referral campaign because of increased resource demands. Called the “Great MphasiS Treasure Hunt”, employees with the highest number of referral joinees were awarded as much as Rs 10,000 per candidate and a car, among other things. Employees with lesser number of referrals walked away with Mac books, iPods, plasma TV, and gift vouchers. A global services firm, with offices across India, doubled the cash incentive for some positions and is giving out spa coupons. The firm was toying with the idea of gifting IPL tickets not long ago and is now planning to send employees on a European tour. Referrals are particularly useful in sourcing mid-level managers — technical leads, architects, and project managers — who are often hard to find. These people, with 8 to 12 years of experience, do not apply directly and are difficult to dislodge them from existing jobs. It is a common consensus amongst most companies that employees hired through the referral channel often tend to stay longer and have higher productivity. Although the incentives bestowed look ostentatious, they come at a much lower price than what is paid to recruitment agencies — between two and five times higher. “While most companies work on the current employees referrals alone, at Dell, we add additional edge to our referral program by connecting Dell alumni within social groups,” says Ajay Tripathi, Director HR – PG & Services BU, Dell India. Social Media: An emerging recruitment platform With Social Networking platform having emerged as a powerful marketing tool, the recruiters too have realized its potential as a tool/platform to complement their existing recruitment initiatives. While the first wave of online recruitment was led by the job portals such as naukri.com, the second wave, the era of Web 2.0, has been unleashed by social networking sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, TooStep, Yellojobs, Reffster and others. While job portals succeeded in reaching out to active job seekers, companies still find it difficult to attract those who are comfortable in their present roles, and do not put up their resumes on jobsites. This is where Social Networking comes into play. Recruiters connect with candidates over these networks and communicate with them regularly on a one to one basis, there by creating an environment of comfort for them These networks also give an insight into a candidates other activities and interests, aiding in having his complete profile. The best part about social networks is that it gives job seekers the chance to scan firms and vice versa. Most companies highlight on their websites the kind of work environment and benefits they provide. For startups, social networking websites now provide fertile ground for hiring and more and more entrepreneurs are logging on to it. “Like all companies we have a Facebook page for the company which we constantly update with the happenings with in the organization such as employee interactions, internal event details, fun at work activities, the new job opportunities and other developments. This acts as a great platform to connect with people out there and evangelize about the company’s culture thereby building the brand,” says LK Bhatia, VP and Head – Resource Management Group, Tech Mahindra. Also the company encourages its current employees to join the Facebook page and share their experiences. Tech Mahindra currently has over 3000 people connected to it over Facebook and nearly 2000 followers on Twitter. Working closely with the India Marketing and Communications team, the recruitment team at Capgemini too actively uses multiple Social Media platforms for hiring professionals. “We have created “Capgemini India Careers” community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and WordPress (Blog). This community generates a lot of interest amongst our target audience of potential hires and provides a platform to engage with our external talent pool while cementing our brand as a preferred employer. We regularly update our social media channels with our on-going recruitment drives. We also engage interested candidates by answering their queries on our company offerings. We also encourage our recruiters to use social media effectively,” says Sreenivasa Rao Yadavilli, Head, Recruitment, Capgemini India. Several technology leaders/ domain experts constantly tweet and have a huge fan following. At Collabera, the company sees this as an opportunity to look out for. “Several of our tech leaders are active tweeters and connect and discuss with several others with the same technology/domain interest. Hence, whenever we have a job opening in that space, we encourage our leaders to spread the word,” says KL Sheela, Head – HR, Collabera. Talking about the social media initiative with in the company, Benedict Arokiasamy, Director - Talent Development and Corporate HR, CSS says, “Our R&D wing extensively uses social media to track geeks in the industry. CSS Corp Labs attracts talent through blog postings, twitter and open source forums. There have been instances where developers and potential employees have touch based with us for openings after getting to know about our open source free tools that have been spoken about in the industry.” The growth of social networking sites has been swift. For instance, in 2007 LinkedIn had 10 million users but 2010, the company crossed 70 million registered users and over one million company profiles across various industries. These sites, especially LinkedIn, are business-oriented social networking sites, providing instant credibility to a professional’s profile, with the referrals and recommendations of the person, thus aiding recruiters in captivating their mindshare. Thus, today many job seekers and recruiters in India are making use of such sites to identify the right and potential candidates, including international talent, at minimal cost. “LinkedIn also helps the recruitment team to find out professionals with the skill sets of our requirement and working in other companies,” adds Bhatia. Innovating Recruitment Strategies: Going beyond the Conventional Though the advent social media has aided the recruiters in reaching out to a wider talent pool, most organizations feel it is not enough. With the IT recruitment market becoming ultra-competitive, soaring employee turnover and widening demand-supply gap is pushing recruiters to be aggressive and innovative. And in the past two years innovation is what has been driving a lot of traction for them. In late 2010, Sapient rolled out a recruitment campaign based on the concept of 'Stolen' and openly announcing its intention of stealing. Hunting for technologists for its SapientNitro and Sapient Global Markets business units, the company was looking for individuals with a few years of professional experience. The campaign — spanning media channels such as online, mobile and outdoor – consisted of mug shots of young people who seem happy to be stolen. The copy says that it is not a crime to want something better. Other mug shots include a brief description of the stolen individual, with the underlined message, "Stolen! You could be next!" this was widely campaigned across Noida, Gurgaon and Bangalore. Considering the high attrition rate in the IT sector, Sapient is perhaps the first company to take such an aggressive and straight faced confession on poaching. “Poaching” according to most is a concept of ethics. The reality is that in an extremely challenging job market, companies often attempt to 'steal' individuals from their competitors. While most companies might deny that they poach, Sapient acknowledges it. At Collabera, Sheela’s team has found a new avenue of looking for niche talent, i.e., the popular technology forums. “The recruitment team closely follows enterprise community groups such as that of Oracle and SAP. For example, a while back we had a requirement for BI professionals and we were easily able to get 10-12 leads from the popular BI communities. Due to this, the cycle time for hiring had dropped significantly,” she says. For the consulting giant, Capegemini, VisionPlus is a niche skill in the Indian market. As market-leaders of this skill, the company took it upon itself to create a forum that would foster sharing of ideas and thoughts, further benefiting the industry. “The ‘Vision 2020’ symposium organized by Capgemini across cities of Bangalore and Chennai enabled us to reach out to hundreds of professionals with the respective skill, guiding them on the technology advancements in this field. The exercise was well received by the community. In most organizations the battle is always between the build vs buy model when it comes to recruitment. “At Wipro, we believe in the build model, where we cash in on the talent within the organization and train them on new skills that the company would require in the coming months. Also, there is a large non-engineering graduate pool (the B.Sc. degree holders) that the company is looking to tap into,” explains Preeti Rajora, Wipro. Wipro Academy of Excellence, which offers a ‘learn while you earn’ program and the VISTA program for non-engineering graduates that is going to be launched shortly are a few initiatives towards this end. Also the company has built a strong campus connect program with universities abroad, especially in Middle and Latin America. This has significantly helped it to hire good talent for its U.S. and other nearshore centers in these areas. Since 2009, the program has gathered a significant prominence. Lately, there has also been tremendous effort towards hiring of Women professionals and differently abled. Most companies today have special drives with in campuses and outside, inviting woman professionals to join. Even in referrals, there are extra bonuses for referring a woman professional. “We have also tied up with NGOs and conducted recruitment drives especially for the differently abled. Further, in keeping with the motive of inclusivity, special recruitment drives were conducted solely for women. These campaigns have been tremendously successful,” says Elango R, Mphasis. With market opening up it is relatively easy to source the talent but challenge lies in ensuring them to join on time. The risk is offer drops which most of organizations face but also leads in duplication of efforts to source a candidate for an open position. While talent acquisition continues to be the major pain point for the organizations today, a bigger problem that haunts them is having a candidate join the organization after offer letter is given. The usual joining time for a candidate after appointment letter is offered is about two months. This time is highly crucial for companies since a majority of professionals continue their hunt for opportunities with better package despite a job confirmation. To reduce the loss of potential hires, the HR teams have put in place various strategies and initiatives. For example, at Aditi Technologies has a networking program, ‘Aditi Starters — The main course is yet to come’. The company at frequent periods, invites the newly hired who are yet be on board for a dinner at their guest house, where they get a chance to meet and network with the senior and mid level management get to know more about their peers. “From the moment a candidate is offered an appointment letter till he is on board, the HR teams keeps in constant touch with him/her and keep them appraised of the happenings, so that the sense of belonging is built from day one,” says Nirnajan, Aditi. Similalry, IBM has its initiative, Royal Blue Ambassador, where an older employee is attached to a new joinee to help them through the initial days of transition and make it as comfortable as possible. To avoid the risk of losing the new hires, Fidility National Financial India has devised a new on boarding framework called Keep in Touch (KIT). This framework encompasses all the steps initiated by the HR from the time an offer is made until the employee joins the company. “During the On-boarding process, we have a checklist includes sending of the company profile, the Corporate Newsletter - LeXis, giving a call to check the status of the candidate’s exit process in the current company; to name a few. This works well in gauging any potential offer drops and to prepare necessary backups well in advance,” explains Anindita Ranjan, Senior Manager - Human Resources, Fidelity National Financial India. In a recent conversation with media, Deloitte Global Service Line Leader (Global Employer Services) Bruce M Stewart highlighted that the attrition is turning out to be a "big challenge" for businesses in India, resulting in massive costs. This coupled with the increasing gap between demand and supply of talent, will put the recruiter in a tight spot in the coming years. One will have to wait to see how far companies go to get the best out there. NRIs: A new talent pool to target Post recession, India bounced back faster as compared to the western countries. Capgemini held a unique event called “Come home to India” in the U.S. where we reached out to the Indian professionals with lucrative career opportunities at Capgemini India. We received a very positive response from these U.S. based, Indian professionals who were keen to return and work in India. Sreenivasa Rao Yadavilli, Head, Recruitment, Capgemini India Campus Hiring: Attracting fresh talent At CSS, the company uses the Techcareer portal which works towards attracting and engaging with talent. “This portal allows us to target students in their final year of education aspiring for a career in IT. We engage with the students in their final year and offer special courses to train them towards developing soft as well as technical skills. Since the Techcareer is a worldwide, multilingual initiative we are witnessing increased interest levels in this program. Benedict Arokiasamy Director -Talent Development and Corporate HR, CSS Corp We recently launched ‘iPad for an interview’, an initiative targeted at hiring engineering talent,” It is a four-pronged process and starts with an online coding test for candidates, followed by the ‘algorithmic round’ where candidates are asked to write a piece of code, then the ‘tech round’ and concludes with an interview by the CEO. “Given our stringent and challenging recruitment process, we recognize candidates who qualify for the interview round and irrespective of whether they join Directi or not, we gift them an iPad. The idea is to reward and recognize the right talent and build a mindshare for Directi. This year we gave 30+ Ipads to students from India’s top engineering institutes. As per part of our campus hiring program we visited over 30 campuses all across the country. Bhavin Turakhia Founder CEO and Chairman, Directi Group With pure play Product Engineering market still nascent in India, certain roles like Usability and Globalization Engineers, Product Managers, Architects & Research analysts are scarce. To reward these uncommon skills, CA Technologies offers research sponsorships for eligible candidates, curriculum cocreation, and free product licenses to universities & facilitates industry-institution interactions.. Sakaar Anand, VP HR, CA Technologies, India We initiated a ‘Social media strategy’ that addresses our branding, marketing and recruitment needs, as per emerging trends like web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0. As part of this, some of the initiatives we have implemented are – Creation of a youtube video channel, Video interviews of our employees, Office tour videos and Video clippings of various events/talks. We have also created video contest campaigns like ‘Josh’ and ‘I am Torry Harris’ themes to highlight our DNA and showcase the ‘sense of belonging’ that our employees have. These videos show the culture and Josh of THBS and give a perspective of the company to potential job seekers. Manju Hansai, Head of Shared Services Torry Harris Business Solutions