HR/ RECRUITMENT SPECIAL ....................Campus Hiring Gets a New Spin

Campus Hiring Gets a New Spin QUICK TESTS: Companies take candidates out to dinner or give them ambiguous case studies      Campus recruitments no longer follow a predictable pattern: Company representatives sit across the table with students, engage them in set-format interviews or group discussions and seal the deal, as it were. In times of heavy competition, recruitments are being given a new spin. “There is an anxiety to get a candidate with the right fit,” says Prince Augustin, executive vice president, group human capital and leadership development, Mahindra & Mahindra. From taking shortlisted candidates out to dinner or administering psychometric tests to assess their leadership styles, organisations are lining up unique strategies to hire the best candidate in the shortest possible time. A look at some innovative recruitment techniques. Simulations, Dinners The Boston Consulting Group has been training its campus recruitment team for a while through simulations on how to select candidates in a shorter span of time. It has had to re-visit its campus recruitment strategy after it realised that it was getting only 30 minutes to interview a candidate, as against the earlier 45 minutes, on account of the large number of students applying. The team has been asked to present ambiguous business case studies so they can judge the student’s problem solving method faster. “The teams are trained on how to lead a student to the problem and make quick observations and decisions,” says Suresh Subudhi, partner and director at BCG. Consulting companies are also known to take shortlisted candidates out for dinner before the final interview, to check if they fit into the firm’s culture. “Faculty is never present in these dinners and such informal gatherings give the recruiters a fair glimpse into how the students are groomed,” says Sankarshan Basu, chairperson, Career Development Services at IIM Bangalore. The uncertain economic environment has watered this down a bit, though: Till a few years ago, consulting majors would take students out to plush hotels, but now the dinners are at college campuses. And no liquor is served. Early Screening and Grilling Last year, Citibank began identifying candidates in their first year at top management colleges through projects and campus connect programmes where students were presented with case studies to solve. “This helps students understand the bank and its values better,” says Anuranjita Kumar, country human resources officer, Citi India. The bank does not conduct aptitude tests and believes in three rounds of ‘conversations’, where a student’s body language, style, ability to bring about change, work in a partnership and take ownership is observed. Open-ended questions like, “What values drive you professionally and personally? How do you plan to go about your career growth?” are asked, at times by different panelists. Leadership Tests Mahindra & Mahindra has devised a behaviour and personality metric assessment that tests a candidate’s persuasiveness and participative leadership style. During the hour-long final interview, questions include: ‘What has been the happiest day of your life?’ and, ‘Who has been the most difficult person you worked with?’ The student’s thought flow is observed, says Augustin. Recruiters are trained to notice even a flicker of emotion, which tell them that he or she was not just parroting a response. Case Studies Deloitte at times sends an army of 20 recruiters to each campus who divide themselves into panels and observe how students solve case studies in groups and individually. The panelists are changed and similar problems are given to the same student to check for inconsistencies. RPG Enterprises provides caselets or shorter case studies to students. It did away with group discussions since last year. Students are also tested on ambiguity and self-assessment through questions like: “What would you do if you join your dream company but realise this was not what you expected?” Quick Innovations ArunBharadwaj, first-year student at IIM Lucknow, says similar changes has been noticed during summer internship selection as well. A start-up divided the batch into groups and made sure they did not know each other too well, to observe how they work with unknown people. “We were made to do advertising campaigns. That was a first on campus,” he says. Some tests, of course, are devised on the spur of the moment. At one of the IIMs last year, Amit Das, senior vice president, group HR at RPG Enterprises and his team had to interview a student who claimed he had won accolades in dancing. Asked to prove his skills, he whistled a tune and danced in front of the entire team. Needless to say, he clinched the offer

DEVINA SENGUPTA ET131126