Social Media & Online Hiring and Employer Branding are New Ways of Recruitment: Ajay Shah, Teamlease Services

For students about to finish their course, or graduates who are freshly out of college, hiring is a term that figures heavily on their minds. And thanks to the advent of technology, the hiring scenario in India has improved says Mr Ajay Shah, Head – Recruitment, Teamlease Services. In an interview with DataQuest, Mr Shah goes in detail on the current hiring trends, skills in demand and the issue of skills gap.

Excerpts

Current hiring scenario in India

Hiring in India is quite optimistic overall and has shown consistent growth on the demand side. With a few downside on industries, which are in consolidation stage and hence does not add to the overall job creation. Also, considering that we have more than 1 million graduates passing every year in India, there is an interim dearth to address this volume of job aspirants. However, the upside to this is that now jobs are at the reach of people across A & B towns especially due to increase in online hiring platforms and actual hiring. This gives an immediate exposure to aspirants and the connect, which seemed to be a problem earlier. Also, the govt. reforms on building formalization through farm to non-farm, Rural to Urban and especially on the wage correction. The surge in hiring activity will lead to a further emergence of niche roles and new opportunities, especially in sectors such as renewables, healthcare and life sciences, retail, e-commerce, chemicals and data analytics. Technology and Financial Services shall continue to stay at the largest consumption of talent.

The serious of the issue of skills gap; measures taken by industry to address the same

Changing dynamics of the jobs landscape, skill enhancement remains a chief priority to stay relevant in the highly competitive and constantly evolving Indian markets. There is clearly a Demand-Supply Mismatch, essentially due to qualitative aspect. While, India has become the fastest-growing start-up ecosystem in the world where, the fight for talent is extreme, most new-age companies/start-ups find it hard to fill positions due to the lack of skilled talent. In the last decade, India witnessed its third big revolution: start-ups. Building new ventures from the ground-up is slowly and steadily becoming mainstream as more and more aspiring entrepreneurs have local successes (like Flipkart, Ola, Oyo, etc.) to look up to. Future of Job is not just a headcount game and is going to be acquisition of skill.

Impact of new technologies on Recruitment

It’s not only new technologies but newer ways that are changing the hiring exposure. So while most talk on the tech side is the aspect of AI & ML, social media hiring, Employer branding and ONLINE hiring are the new ways of hiring. While tech plays an important role from a perspective of building a quick reach to a larger audience, video interviews, online assessments, asynchronous interviewing are happening to increase the efficiency and quality of hiring. Freelancing and Flexi working has also opened doors to a large exposure of talent to jobs. The initiation of integrated platforms and crowd souring are also leading to change in the hiring models. HR analytics will also play an important role in decision making and surging the hiring ratio.

Profiles in demand and the salary trends

Skills like digital marketing, risk analytics, data and cyber security, and strategic procurement will be in great demand. Considering every industry and organization have to essentially be a tech company, there will be need for more Design Architects and Solution/ Landscape Architects. Also, newer roles in the financial Sector like Chief ethics officer, Digital Sales, Chief advisory, blockchain and digital transformation.