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1 JUNE 2013 H I R I N G & B E Y O N D Find TimesJobs.com's career artices, expert advise and tips on timesofindia.com jobs & careers section

2 Cover Story Creativity Matters Hiring is fun, if you see it that way! Pabo Picasso, once said, Everything you can imagine is rea. The recruitment industry, today, is taking that quite seriousy. The changing business environment and tightening competition to be the chosen one, is making organisations mu over creative hiring ideas. To counter the probem of the imited taent poo and to attract the best avaiabe taent many organisations are adopting new-age methods to hire candidates. Heineken s recent hiring campaign The Candidate, received mixed reviews from industry eaders. Where some see this as just an attention seeking stint, others fee that even if this is simuated, it can be a game changer for future hiring strategies. Samar Singh Sheikhawat Senior Vice President, Marketing United Breweries Ltd expained that Heineken s campaign had the intention of hiring a creative person through an engaging process (rather than the standard one-on-ones) where the job-seeker coud act on rea-time situations and come up with out of the box ideas. The resourcefuness and spontaneity of young jobseekers was instanty instigated and it paid off. In the process we as a brand came across as fresh, engaging and innovative in our approach to hire someone with simiar core Fact Fie Whie the appication of innovative hiring methods is increasing, their reach is imited to niche profies and roes. Fear of faiure/negative branding has been seen as the biggest imitation in empoying creative hiring techniques by most of the surveyed organisations. Most organisations anticipate that the usage of such practices wi grow in the times ahead, but supporting infrastructure and encouraging business environment is essentia for this to happen. vaues, he added. Gamification is aso one such practice which has emerged as quite a popuar too to hire candidates. The organisations use this technique to screen potentia candidates for attributes such as competitive drive and mutitasking abiities that woud set them apart from other candidates who are ony academicay fit for the job. Udit Mitta, Founder & MD, Unison Internationa stated that hiring in a fun way is a good practice, indeed, but It takes experience, exposure and brainstorming to have creative thoughts on, whie hiring, he excaimed. Besides, being a fresh, ucrative and ivey way of hiring, it aso adds to the empoyer brand vaue, beieve industry experts. However, it requires high eves of maturity on the part of the organisation. Creative recruitment formats have to be thoroughy thought through before appying them to hiring. SHARE YOUR IDEAS If your organisation has innovative hiring ideas, share with us at editoria.timesjobs@gmai.com 2

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4 Innovations From conventiona to creative Referras have an a new meaning at Infosys BPO Today, the war for taent is fought to ensure that organisations survive and sustain themseves whie they serve their customers. The need is to buid an effective taent pipeine by using different mediums and channes. The focus shoud aso be on buiding an interna taent poo through panned career movements, job rotation and interna job postings. As an organisation we consciousy work towards deveoping empoyee competencies through different interventions and training programs. Another effective medium is Empoyee Referra. At Infosys it is caed Refer-A- Pa (RAP). It is positioned as a brand and has become very effective and extremey successfu. A prime exampe of its success is one Raghavendra K Vice President and Head HR Infosys BPO of the initiatives we undertook in our tier 2 DC. In a scenario and a ocation where most peope beieved that the right quaity of taent woud not be avaiabe to service goba customers we were abe to overcome the same with the aunch of an initiative caed Team Juggernauts. This was a cross functiona team which spear headed empoyee referras. They used the principes of RAP and went on an overdrive, communicating, undertaking foor waks, road shows, team meetings and caed for references. The basic principes of invovement, communication and the what s in it for me? was ceary expained resuting in this initiative becoming a huge success to the extent that today, in that tier 2 ocation, no externa recruitment vendor is used to get taent into the organisation. In today s competitive environment, the need is to be creative to overcome chaenges ike what has been discussed above. The need is to have a focused approach, ook at aternatives which are reevant without foregoing the basic principes of simpicity, abiity to adapt and meet the needs of the business. Creativity ies in understanding & impementing a thought Reset, Rebuid and Restart at GE India The Restart program is a brainchid of the GE ITC; a recruitment program that was first introduced in the year Given that the poo of women entering the fied of science is reativey ow in India and the fact that quite a few eave their careers to take care of their famiies, we initiated this program to widen the net for attracting diverse taent. Some of our most promising Restart hires have been through empoyee referras. We aso reach out to university aumni groups and professors who have engaged on programs with GE to refer women scientists and engineers who are on a career break. Restart has aso been promoted externay through our Aarif Aziz Genera Manager - HR GE India Technoogy Center, Bangaore website and targeted socia media advertisements to attract suitabe taent. We have worked with hiring managers to simpify the hiring process for Restart candidates. Our intent is to compete the process in one day and 4 have an interview pane comprising mutipe members, rather than mutipe interviews. Each Restart hire is compensated taking into consideration interna pay parity norms and market compensation and benefits data. Most women, when they come back to work are quite worried about whether they wi be abe to fit in, ge with the team and work in sync with the rest of the team. To successfuy integrate this taent into GE, we encourage them to everage our Power Mentoring program and find a mentor who can guide and faciitate their career aspirations. We request managers to put individua deveopment pans in pace for their Restart taent so that they can poish both their technica and professiona abiities. As of date, we have cose to 35 Restart hires. This program has brought us coser to being an empoyer of choice.

5 Innovations Creative Hiring: Where and how to start? Buiding the foundation "Where is the taent?" - Where the search for taent is focused is critica. Is it focused on those who are activey seeking empoyment/ career change? Hiring aso needs to be focussed on those professionas who are not activey seeking empoyment. For this your work cuture, quaity of work need to be top notch, so that your firm can attract a non-seeker. Abiity and portfoio take center stage?" - Buzzwords mean nothing and assessment of abiity during interviews is hard. A deep dive into the portfoio of the individua gives carity. "Divergent thinking matters?" - Most roes require foks to quicky come up with aternative soutions to probems or opportunities. Research has it that some foks are much better than others when it comes to coming up with aternatives. Some very interesting scenarios can be devised to check out an individua s abiity for "divergent think", during an interview. "Socia media and professiona reputation can pay a roe" - Peope who are very passionate about an area of work, many a times make contributions to open source. Others create portfoios on the web or in socia networks reated to their fied of work. Quaity of such contributions is visibe to hiring managers. Simiary, patforms ike Take Two Opinion Outsourcing wi rise amid incresing focus on creative hiring LinkedIn have recommendations. A thread of recommendations from credibe peope in the fied is a sign of high professiona repute and coud be used in the seection process. Neeraj Guati Managing Director Monotype Soutions India Pvt Ltd "Some facuty are great at assessing taent" - Facuty members who are deepy engaged are exposed to their student's though process, passion, work ethic, aspirations. Facuty of high repute understand that you have a high bar can provide effective recommendations. Companies are in a continuous endeavor to cut costs by efficient use of resources or negotiating on best deas from vendors. Empoyers are in constant pursuit to put together their expectations from a roe by working and reworking on the "Job Description" and matching the avaiabiity with those expectations. Pacement consutants pay a major roe in the evoution of the hiring process. They are creating an environment where they screen taent on various pre-set parameters to segment them into the various skied groups. These groups are categorised on the basis of Leadership skis, Creative eements, Risk appetite. Overapping of skied groups is becoming very common as peope are turning more and more domain agnostic. The competitive need is enabing the taent poo to spearhead initiatives by crossing boundaries set by traditiona domain champions. These innovative minds think out of the box and have the capabiity to take risk, to spearhead the direction of change. With the evoution of socia media, pacement consutants are foowing the digita footprints in networking sites very cosey thereby spotting potentia candidates who are not activey ooking for job change. They are cosey tracking movements of their cients and preparing themseves for the next project 5 beforehand. The turnaround time of coming back with suitabe profies for a particuar vacancy is reducing. Going ahead, communication wi no onger be a barrier as creative thinking wi cross the communication facades. So Nianjana Som Bhowmick Executive Director Consus interviews might be repaced with seminars where potentia candidates wi be given to dispay his taent in a arger way. Majority of the recruitment activities are ikey to be outsourced to the pacement consutants with increasing focus on creative hiring.

6 Case-in-Point S E T T I N G A N E X A M P L E Samar Singh Sheikhawat Senior Vice President Marketing, UBL Heineken - The Dutch beer giant s The Candidate, shows the story of how Heineken aunched a noncontemporary recruitment campaign to hire a candidate for one of their job openings. Here s what the company has to say about this unique recruitment drive. Over to Samar Singh Sheikhawat, Senior Vice President, Marketing, United Breweries Ltd. his take on Heineken s The Candidate Creativity heps in fresh fow of ideas, in ine with the atest trends. It heps innovate and makes peope think out of the box. HEINEKEN as a brand feeds on innovation and beieves in surprising constanty. With Heineken, even something as common as recruiting an intern can be made nove and unexpected. Whie hiring, we ook for a person who can think out of the box, deveop fresh ideas and refresh the brand s image in the bargain. The Candidate opened up Heineken s word to outsiders. It gave insight to Heineken s roe as an empoyer brand and demonstrated why Heineken stands out from the rest. The campaign had the intention of hiring a creative person through an engaging process (rather than the standard one-onones) where the job-seeker coud act on rea-time situations and come up with out of the box ideas. The resourcefuness and spontaneity of young jobseekers was instanty instigated and it paid off. In the process we as a brand came across as fresh, engaging and innovative in our approach to hire someone with simiar core vaues. It is a good practice but it surey has to be in ines with the brand s messaging, imagery and the campaign has to be interesting and engaging enough to attract job-seekers. being innovative is the mantra A fun way of hiring heps break the ice and understand a job seeker better; especiay with regards to his/her spontaneity and wit. Through this campaign Heineken inspired young aduts / job-seekers to think beyond traditiona quaifications and encouraged them to be resourcefu, innovative, and inventive and stand out in order to fufi their dreams. Aso, considering that the process has the potentia to be an engaging one, there is tremendous opportunity to generate ot of buzz through the campaign. That is what we did for The Candidate where we used the socia media patform and created noise around the hiring process itsef. The campaign spread ike wid fire and we were abe to generate consumer interest which heped us shortist our Candidate. Even the video which showed prospective candidates reacting to various situations went vira within minutes of posting onine. beyond just hiring It is important to recognise the power of digita and socia media as it hods great potentia in unearthing taents, especiay for a country ike India which has the most number of active users on Facebook. The Candidate campaign was primariy run on the digita medium and we saw a ot of buzz generated through it. Engagement, innovation and sticking to core brand vaues are the key factors that shoud be kept in mind. 6

7 News Bytes N E W S B Y T E S Ditch traditiona designations; get creative Wiiam Shakespeare once famousy stated, What s in a name? That which we ca a rose by any other name woud sme as sweet. In an organisation, a name aone can get easiy ost, but accompanied by an impressive designation, it makes the right impression. Your designation speaks a thousand words about your roe in an organisation. Coo and innovative designations ike Chief Fun Officer, Chief Happiness Officer, Chief Ma Mechanic, Cost Ki Anayst and Chief Beief Officer, hep keep empoyees in good humour and keep them motivated. n The Times of India, May 2013 Empoyers find it hard to fi positions inspite of rise in taent suppy Taent shortage is a probem area for most empoyers across the gobe. Whie other business chaenges keep the top management on their toes, taent suppy is an ongoing strugge that cuts across industries and geographies. The taent paradox further intensifies in India, where demand exsists, as does suppy, but there is a huge skis gap that makes a ot of the job seeking candidates unempoyabe. A recent survey on Taent Shortage, conducted by ManpowerGroup India indicates that Indian empoyers find it tough to fi positions mainy in accounting & finance, IT staff and engineers; and 61% of them are experiencing difficuty in finding right staff with right skis. n The Times of India, May 2013 Peter Principe: Ways to curb it The Up or Out strategy is quite common in organisations where empoyees either have to move up the hierarchica adder or get pink-sipped. A ot of other strategies have aso been evoved to curb the phenomenon or Peter Principe, but not a are fu proof. The phenomenon of Peter Principe can prove to be detrimenta to an organisation s reward and recognition framework. Over time, a number of strategies have been evoved to curb this phenomenon but none of them have proved to be 100 per cent viabe. n The Times of India, May 2013 Fexi hiring in IT sector to reach 20% mark by 2020: ISF The Indian IT and ITeS industry, which is considered one of the pioneers inorganised staffing, is expected to witness a high eve of fexi hiring in the next few years, says Indian Staffing Federation. Fexi hiring or temporary recruitments in the IT industry is ikey to increase from 10 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020, according to Indian Staffing Federation (ISF), the apex body of fexi staffing industry in India. By 2025, it is expected that 10 per cent of the overa workforce in India coud be working in a fexibe capacity, through staffing companies, it said. Athough the industry has been facing a tough time amid the goba economic sowdown, there has been buoyancy in fexi hiring among IT companies in India, ISF President K Pandia Rajan said. n The Economic Times, May 2013 Phaneesh Murthy scanda: India Inc shoud be more proactive in nipping sexua harassment cases Reka Maximovitch and Aracei Roiz are both attractive women, but Phaneesh Murthy s repeat offence may have more to do with our toerant attitude towards sexua harassment than anything ese, a Princeton study suggests. The theory, propounded by socia psychoogist at the university John B Pryor and feow researchers, Janet Giedd and Karen Wiiams, says some peope induge in sexua harassment some of the time, but such behaviour is ikey to be repeated if it s toerated. n The Economic Times, May

8 The Recruitment Prophesy Some creative hiring channes have aready made their mark in the Indian recruitment industry; some are yet to take-off. Whichever is the case...they sti have a ong way to go. Here s a peep into some of the fourishing innovative hiring techniques of today Gamification: Gamification, by definition, is the appication of game mechanics and game design techniques to non-game appications and scenarios to make them more fun and engaging. Gamification has an extensive area of appication ranging from being a too for customer engagement, heath and weness programs to empoyee training programs. Empoyers today are ready to experiment with their hiring strategies and Gamification seems to be another innovation approach in this direction. Gamification pays an important roe in crowdsourced recruitment. It is a powerfu too to create that excitement and tap into the competitive spirit of your empoyees to make every singe one of them an active taent scout. We, here at Sapient have incucated Gamification into our hiring strategy atey, to ensure that new hires come up to speed faster than before, thereby heping them contribute to the firm s productivity and creativity from the very beginning. I beieve that Gamification can be used as part of the hiring program when effectivey cubbed with the traditiona methods of hiring. It does not stand a chance to outshine traditiona methods as both have to co-exist in a system for the desired resuts. However, it is certainy a vaue add and adds an interesting new dimension to the process of hiring, Prashant Bhatnagar, Director- Hiring, Sapient India. Crowdsourcing: Much has been said about many being smarter than a few. The wisdom of the crowd or crowdsourcing, gives precedence to the coective wisdom of a group of peope over a singe expert. Though not a new concept it has recenty gained momentum as a very efficient recruitment too in the new age recruitment mode Recruitment 4.0, which emphasizes on technoogy and networking advancements. Diversity of opinion couped with the freedom to choose the best fit from mutipe aternatives makes crowdsourcing a beneficia hiring technique. Offering empoyees the opportunity to be part of decisionmaking process, hep boost empoyee morae and oyaty towards the empoyer, in the ong run. Crowdsourcing can hep organizations buid, engage and foster communities that can be utiized effectivey for branding and recruiting. With crowdsourcing one gets access to a poo of goba resources that can hep generate soutions overnight, iteray, Savneet Shergi, Head Taent Acquisition, De India. Crowd sourcing is great. But to make it work a company needs to have an engaged community first. To do this one can utiize existing socia networks. Linkedin and Facebook are the two biggest socia networks which can be used by companies. There is a need for recruitment and HR specific patforms which have the right content, the right audience and the right toos for both sets of users. Remember that crowd sourcing is a method. You need the right toos to make it work. Socia networks: Candidates are more accessibe and comfortabe in the socia sphere as they can gather unbiased feedback about their prospective empoyer from current empoyees through socia sites, said Purva Misra, senior vice president human resources, MakeMyTrip.com at the Boardroom Diaogue organised by TimesJobs.com. As per a TimesJobs.com survey, 49% of the surveyed empoyers beieve that the key benefit of socia recruiting is its potentia to reach the inaccessibe passive candidates. Neary 18% empoyers opined that empoying socia networking toos woud hep them source and hire potentia techsavvy candidates. Faster fiing up of key positions, thereby reducing the recruitment time is aso considered an important benefit of socia recruiting. In this series of Boardroom Diaogues, experts agreed that technoogy, socia toos and referras pay a very crucia roe whie adopting this approach. By design, socia networks have very active users who use the networks for various contexts which do not invove jobs. Therefore, socia recruitment becomes an ongoing process even when you are not hiring and invoves engagement which is not aways hiring reated. This is unike reguar recruitment where hiring reated engagement happens when you have to hire. Organisations across India have comprehended the potentia of socia recruiting and are appreciating the resuts. Discaimer: Information provided in this newsetter sha not be reproduced, pubished, re-sod or otherwise distributed in any medium without the prior written permission of TimesJobs.com and a cear acknowedgement to TimesJobs.com. Contact: TJinsite, TimesJobs.com, Pot No 6, Sector 16A, Fim City, Noida. Write in to editoria.timesjobs@gmai.com Copyright 2012 Times Business Soutions Limited. A rights reserved.