Bridging ‘Recruiter-small Town Graduate’ Gap Needs Innovative Solution

One of the biggest challenges a company faces today is of spotting real talent from among the teeming millions searching for too few available jobs. Casting the net to catch the best-fit candidate can be an un-ending, time-consuming, resource-hungry activity.

Recruitment managers in most companies are constrained by budgets and limited logistics support while visiting campuses located in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. The result is a superficial search for the right candidates and recruitment based on a quick test and a subjective interview. What happens then is that the industry misses out many ‘diamonds’ because the net has not been cast wide enough and practically never extends to remote Tier-2, Tier-3 areas where the most aspirational may be found.

This widening gap shows up as recruiting teams of a company may have to visit over 200 colleges to hire 1000 fresh engineering graduates. And the list of colleges in all probability will never have an engineering college that is located in a Tier-3 town. Degree granting engineering colleges in smaller towns struggle to get well-known national names to visit them during the placement season.

There is an urgent need to solve this burning issue of bridging the gap between recruiters and potential candidates from deep interiors of the country. We need a working solution that bridges the gap through a skill assessment and recruitment platform that connects job givers with tens of thousands of students and help them realise their potential to the fullest.

We need a solution to make pre-assessed graduating students discoverable by recruiting companies based on their academics, topped up by a detailed assessment score.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) that is focusing on improving employability of graduates from over 10,000 technical colleges in the country is looking at optimal solutions to bridge the recruiter-candidate gap by using technology to achieve a perfect fit between aspirant and job at a fast pace.

The ideal solution would assess final year students pursuing engineering degree and diploma programs in all streams, bachelor’s in business management and business administration.

While the expectations of a college placement services from bachelor’s programs in arts, sciences, commerce from the University system are low, the Engineering and Management colleges have a designated person to facilitate placements. What should the assessment cover needs to be thought through completely and must include technical strengths for recruiters to assess their employability.

Of course, it goes without saying that the recruiters must be able to reach a wider net of candidates, use their assessment results on a number of parameters to get a ‘real feel’ of the candidate. The solution to gain acceptance among students and companies needs to come at negligible or no cost. With large companies mandated to invest a part of their profits on CSR related projects, it is time for them to look at deploying their CSR funds in helping students find suitable placement opportunities. And this I believe will be the best way to democratise placements across the country.