Hiring is a cornerstone strategy for business success. As Nolan Bushnell puts it – “hire for passion and intensity; there is training for everything else.”
Unfortunately, businesses today presume that passion and talent reside only in top-tier college graduates. Consequently, a large talent pool in the mid-range and smaller educational institutions is left unexplored.
Hiring is back in action
Businesses are up and running again after the recent hard times. Recruiters and HR teams are gearing up with hiring strategies to plump their talent pool by knocking at the campus gates.
A peep at the recent statistics elucidates how organisations are lining up again at the premier educational institutions.
Let me start with the premier B-schools.
Recently, 180 recruiters lined up at IIM Indore in a war for the top creamy talent. Interestingly, the pay packages are as whopping as 25.01 lakh to 49 lakh per annum!
The prestigious IITs have never been lesser in attracting global companies that rain down packages on their students.
The placement season 2021 at the IITs has grabbed all the media attention for ‘bounty’ reasons. The highest offer at IIT Guwahati was INR 2cr, while at IIT Roorkee, it was INR 1.8cr.
I am happy for the learners of such elite institutions, and my sincerest congratulations on their achievement.
But what makes me concerned is the rest of the talent pool that is mercilessly denied the chance to prove themselves.
India – A global talent hub with unexplored talent at smaller institutions
India is a hub for engineering and management talent. It has more than 3500 engineering institutions, 3400 polytechnics and 200 schools of planning and architecture. On the management side, over 3,000 private, 500 government and 70 public-private MBA colleges are in India.
Global companies perceive India as a future-ready player in talent pool availability. As a result, a considerable chunk of Indian talent is hired by start-ups and small businesses from across the globe.
Amidst the virtual work style, the gates for hiring Indian talent are wider. An average working Indian has diverse opportunities to choose from irrespective of geographical boundaries.
Unfortunately, every year the attention of industry giants shifts to the only elite and renowned institutions that produce only 3% of the total count of graduates per year.
The students from smaller institutions struggle for campus interviews as companies reaching them are hardly minimal.
I want to add my two cents of my learning in the years of my observation of CodeQuotient learners. Businesses need talent that fares well in both tech skills and attitude. And they can realise this by training graduates of many smaller institutions too.
I strongly opine that the students from small institutions are a terra-incognita talent. Companies can mend and upskill students as per their business needs in a cost and time-effective approach.
Instances where candidates from smaller institutions climb up the career ladder with proven dedication and hard work are many. Companies miss out on various competitive benefits by ignoring talent from smaller institutions.
Diversity
Let’s look at the corporate giants that rule the industry globally. One of their pillars of success is diversity. Teams that score high in problem-solving and successful collaboration have demonstrated cultural diversity.
Gucci’s CEO said it so well, “Diversity and inclusion, which are the real grounds for creativity, must remain at the centre of what we do.”
By hiring from smaller institutions, organisations can infuse diversity in their culture to a flawless level and create teams that carry the brand legacy.
Cost-effectiveness
At its core, recruitment is always a business for companies. Various factors that can increase recruitment costs include those factors that add to the time, effort and marketing.
By hiring from elite institutions, businesses spend more time and money to woo the candidates. Not to forget that most of these candidates own multiple offers. And many times, the choice of joining is purely made based on packages.
With every candidate that rejects the offer, the hiring time and effort multiply for the businesses. Recruitment drives at smaller institutions can minimise their cost-per-hire and time-per-hire drastically.
Democratise opportunities
The intention to utilise bright talent is a notable reason companies look at elite institutions. However, I trust many smaller institutions display on-par learning opportunities to their students.
Thanks to the technology revolution, learning and education have already stepped up to another level. Students today are at the forefront of upskilling to cater to industry needs.
Recruitment at smaller institutions justifies the democratisation of opportunities to such skilled and enthusiastic talent.
Hiring as per role fitment
At this juncture, some questions we must pose to ourselves are: whether every open position requires a degree from elite institutes? Wouldn’t that suffice if the candidate is technically and mentally capable of accomplishing the responsibilities of the role?
As well known, the concrete recipe in climbing up the corporate ladder has always remained a perfect blend of hard work, a learning mindset and good interpersonal skills. Therefore, candidates with these traits make an ideal fitment irrespective of the educational institution they hail from.
Talent knows no institution
One common trait among the unicorns of the Indian industry – Byju’s, Paytm, AgriBazaar, BookMyShow and OYO teaches us a profound insight.
None of their founders is from elite educational institutions. I want to mention another instance where studies find that Tier 2 students beat their Tier 1 peers in employability score.
Today, we live amidst boundless opportunities to train and upskill candidates. Instead of spending a fortune to wage a talent-hunt war for the creamy talent, selecting proven candidates from smaller institutions and training them would be a wiser option for companies.
Time to initiate a new normal in hiring
It’s high time business leaders realise that talent knows no institutions.
Let’s not forget that this can also be the antidote for India’s tech talent crunch and curb the skyrocketing recruitment costs.
Recruiting from smaller institutions opens up a new window of opportunities for learners, improves the lifestyle of the people in the corners of the country and strengthens companies with diverse and impressive work cultures.
By doing so, businesses can create a new normal of utilising the hidden unleashed Indian talent.
