Rashmi's comment to this post got me thinking that the "Blink" way of making judgements about organizations in the part of the B School student as well as the about the students about the organizatiton is very true.
The blame can be laid squarely on the processes the B Schools follow in India, with their emphasis on days and slots. Here's a first hand account
Organizations even when they are not fighting for talent, want to be known as day zero or one recruiters on campus and a weird bidding war ensures for artificially created talent shortage. There is intellectually hardly any difference between a student who gets placed on day zero (mostly the people with a high CGPA) versus those who get placed on day three or four. The success factor is usually linked to EQ, which the process does not give any space or time to check.
What organizations need to do is create more spaces for student organization interaction that gives them time to see students up close. Summer internships are of course one way to do that. But bear in mind that the process for Summer selection also mirrors the final placements.
Now organizations are creating other avenues, like live projects in campus , and sending people down to take lectures and special classes, which could be specified for an industry. It helps in demystifying the jargon and also build the brand of the employer.
Of course, I hope the pendulum does not swing to the other extreme like how it happens in the US :-)
Gautam,
ReplyDeleteA very nice post - direct on the target. But unfortunately, that's the way the world works. My 2 cents on the recruitment process (at both engg. college and B-Schools).
There is hardly anything to be done in the general corporate world which cannot be done by a non-MBA or a non-Engg degree holder. But still recruiters go to 'Ivy-Leagues' for talent-hunting.
Recruiters are hard pressed for time - so they can't afford to go in public and interview 1000 candidates to recruit 10. The assumption is that likelihood of finding a 'bright capable' person 'fit for the job' is higher in good engg. colleges or B-Schools. So probably they can select 10 right person by interviewing may be just 50 candidates.
Same logic applies for the mad rage for Day0, Day1 slots. The general assumption is that the likelihood of finding the 'perfect candidate' is high on first few slots - because if the candidate is good, he would well have been placed before day 4, 5. So the mad rush for recruiters for the first few slots.
Ofcourse processes like 'Summer internships', or 'on the field selection' are much better to judge a candidate - but imagine the time it takes for a summer internship. What if at the end of 2 months internships your 'summer interns' prove unfit for the role - you will a hard time finding the right resource for your role - as the 'perfect' candidate would have taken the job somewhere else. You loose 2 months of the valuable time (may be money also) and still nowhere. And this is the situation many recruiters want to avoid.
Seth had also touched upon the new art of recruiting in his post yesterday...Hope you had a chance to see that!
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