The job hunt is changing

Penelope trunk blogs about the way traditional job hunt is changing. As social media evolves and the next generation of employees enter the workforce, does her analysis hold true for India too?

Her predictions:

1. Companies will make recruiting young employees the top priority.
2. Candidates will drive the hiring process rather than employers.
3. Companies will stop writing stupid ads.
4. The quality match will take center stage.
5. The workplace will get great.

In India, recruiting young employees is not just a priority but hiring generation X who is now in the 4-10 year work experience is the most critical for survival. Companies can hire younger people from school and train them but now they've got to come up with creative ways to plug their managerial talent gap. Like ICICI Bank is taking a leaf out of the PSU banks' tactics and coming up with a Probationary Officers' program.

Candidates still don't drive the hiring process in India, but I think that's about to change. As competition for talent gets fierce people will start to understand that the employer is no longer माइ बाप but rather an entity to be negotiated on equal terms with.

Interesting Facebook targeting approach that Joel points us to today. Social media trawling by recruiters will get more and more sophisticated. Currently recruiters in India are quite reactive and use Orkut and Yahoo groups to target active job seekers (like these two for HR professionals) . However I see a big learning curve ahead for them, and they will have to be proactive and anticipate better to target passive job seekers.