Disclaimer: This is not exactly a review on interview strategies, but more on a serious issue, viz, shortage of suitable candidates. We just cannot afford to sleep over it or brush it under the carpet. Because it is going to hit back us and the consequences are not going to be pleasant. There has to be a coordinate plan by the corporate sector, academician, educational institutions to tackle this. The question is “Do we have a plan?”. I have given my views based on my experiences in IT sector, I would love to receive feedback from people in other fields also on this issue, with regard to their sectors.
Beyond all the talk of 9% economic growth and a boom in sectors like IT, BPO, Retail, Construction, Hospitality to name a few, there is a serious problem being faced by all sectors in India. There are positions to be filled, and people are needed, but there are just not enough qualified personnel. Companies are ready with projects to build expressways, flyovers, metro rail systems, but where are the engineers needed to build them? For all the talk of airlines being affordable to common man, and the boom in the aviation sector, the shortage of pilots is so acute, that airlines are being forced to hire pilots from other countries. Hospitality sector is hit by serious attrition rates, and a lack of trained personnel. In my sector, IT, for all the hype about growth and profits, the talent shortage is critical. I have seen 4-5 people quit in the team where I work, and the gap has been filled only by persons working in organization. We have not been able to get suitable people and the result is that in our 3 member team, each of us, myself included, is handling the work of 3 people. I am not in the HR sector, but when I interview candidates, I am just shocked at the profiles. Many of them don’t even know the basics of their subject.
In GE, where I work, we outsource the work, to software engineers, from other vendors. And to put it mildly, the quality of most of them sucks. Most of these so called software engineers, cant even debug a program properly, and just not aware of the basics. Many of them cant even draft a proper mail, and too often, I have to end up doing their work, at the cost of my own, to meet deadlines. We cant bask in the glory of a 9% growth, and gushing headlines from business papers, and ignore the reality. And the reality is that, we are facing a critical shortage of manpower. If we keep ignoring this, it is going to hit us badly in our faces. The current shortage has led to a situation, where salaries have shot through the roof, and whether the candidates are really worth it, begs the question. Being in the corporate sector, I have witnessed many of these high profile persons, who earn, the fancy salaries, and believe me, a vast majority of them are not even worth 2 cents.
Why are we hurtling towards such a crisis?
I think the primary reason is the way our education system and even corporates( at least Indian ones) place too much emphasis on academic achievement. This is much unlike the US, where preference is given to track record and ability. Inspite of globalization, and exposure to India, people still feel, that academics is the be all and end all of everything. I want to give them my example, a second class Engineering graduate, and today in a leading **MNC, I handle complex tasks and drive technical initiatives. Doing well in the corporate sector, has nothing to do with where you got your degree from and how many marks you have got. Its got to do with skills like team work, communication, handing pressure, dealing with client. As a software engineer, its not enough if you just know Java or J2EE or some XYZ language. Its how you are able to handle a critical situation. In many cases you would have to interact with a client, who is not tech savvy like you, how would you communicate your message effectively to him?
You are working in a team, some members might be better than you, some might be weaker than you. How do you handle such cases? I am not discounting the value of technical skills, but they are just a foundation, the soft skills are much more vital in a company. Ideally a candidate should have a good mixture of technical and soft skills. But while it is easy to blame candidates, what about the corporate’s role. I have attended many interviews myself, and sorry to say, a majority of them are on technical skills. I have around 7 years of experience in IT field so far, and some how, it really sucks, when I am asked on some vague concepts in my field. When you are interviewing people in Java or C or C#, who have experience, why don’t they keep in mind, that these languages are an ocean. Not even James Gosling or Dennis Ritchie, the inventors of Java and C, respectively, would have known every method in it.
Majority of the companies put up an entrance test, and most of them, contain questions, which can be answered by any one, who mugs up the entire Java or C primer. We work in an era of net access and information at our finger tips. A solution to a technical problem, can be got in an instant, by doing a Google search. There are thousands of tech forums out there. While technical competency should be evaluated for candidates with lesser years of experience, for any person, with more than 4 years of experience, the focus should be on other skills. During my interviews, when I tell, recruiters, that apart from doing development, I also work on design, development, build and release, many are at a loss. I am not sure, how many people, even know, that developing a software doesn’t involve just writing lines and lines of code, there are also other processes involved in it. During a recent interview, I was asked by a person, a question of what happens if, you write the code like this. Now how relevant is that to my work, I don’t understand. Real time development is understanding client requirements and translating them to an application specific level. The sad truth is that the corporate sector, instead of looking at practical knowledge of track record, is still stuck in a rut, when it comes to selecting people.
So before cribbing about lack of suitable candidates and not enough qualified personnel, isn’t it time, that corporates also take a look at their own recruitment process? Isn’t it ridiculous that a person with more than 7 years of experience, has to take a written test? I have seen majority of companies, come up with a one size fits all recruitment process for all candidates, irrespective of their backgrounds. There is a world of difference between a candidate having 7+ years of experience, and a candidate having 2+ years of experience. A majority of the questions asked, are not at all relevant to the work or the work profile. If corporates need suitable candidates, they have to tone up their recruitment process, simple and straight.