Ramit Tyagi was an active contributor to global data and tech talent hiring and has been a part of Genpact as the vice president.
When asked about moonlighting, Ramit claims that it is something that will not last for long and has no benefits for the employees who are following the trend.
One of the core beliefs of Ramit is you need to add the right talent using the right means to go ahead in the competitive market as an organization.
About Ramit Tyagi
With 20+ years in the HR field, Ramit Tyagi is quite a senior person in the HR space and has contributed highly to hiring the best technology talents. Ramit has been into identifying, attracting, and hiring some of the best talents across the industry not only in India but also at various global locations. He was previously associated with various reputed organizations such as TechMahindra, Genpact, and ThreadSol. Currently, he holds the position of director of talent acquisition. Ramit highly believes that adding the right value through the means of the right talent is quite important for an organization to go forward in a competitive market.
“While money does play a role when a candidate selects the organization they want to be a part of, something that needs to play a more important role would be the experience and culture that they get through an organization.”
Last year could be rightfully stated as one of the craziest years for hiring as there were four times the demand than the supply availability in the market. This led to a lot of money being offered to get the right talent. Some candidates held at least 10 to 12 offer letters deciding on which organization to join. That scenario led to candidates deciding on which company would provide them with the highest monetary offer. However more than money it should be more about the experience and culture that an organization provides.
Talking about candidate experience, they need to experience a hint of the culture right from the interviewing stage as it will allow them to visualize the type of organization that they are going to work with and grow with. As a hiring leader myself, I suggest my teams create one of the best candidate experiences by showing the real workplace and culture as that is what will help the candidate understand which organization to choose from.
“Candidate experience is something that starts right from the very first time you create a job description.”
The job description might be the first touchpoint between a candidate and a recruiter. So if a candidate is not that excited to check out the job description then right from there the candidate’s experience starts getting ruined. While it does start from JD, it also goes beyond that stage which means you might want to start building up the experience from the first call with the candidate.
Candidates need to understand why they need to join the organization and what they can get from joining the organization. So it is important to show them that side of your organization that the candidates desire to look at. You might also want to coordinate with the leadership teams, the business team, and the HR team to ensure that the candidate has great experience and continues to grow further. So it can be said to be a mix of all the stages of the hiring process that contribute to the entire candidate experience. But ultimately when they are now in the system, it is now the HR’s turn to take over the responsibilities and ensure that the candidate has positive growth.
“People who grow in an organization are those who have been able to create the right balance between work and their personal life.”
It is quite hard to find the right balance between both life and work as sometimes work might gain priority over life whereas, at other times, life might need more priority over work. So it depends from person to person on what they want to focus on and where the right balance for them lies. It is hence true that people who grow in an organization are the ones who have already created that right balance between both work and life. What that would mean is you need to create an ecosystem and give your best whether it is life or work on priority. For example, if there is a release or deployment then some people might go out of their comfort zone and give work more priority so that they can ensure a successful release.
As an HR when you look out for candidates, you need to check for those who are agile, and flexible. And as an employer, you need to stand by an employee just as how an employee stands by an organization during a critical moment. So leadership must take a front lead and ensure that your employees are feeling good that they are working for this organization. So that is where the right balance between work and life needs to be brought.
“Some roles do need employees in the organization however some of the roles, it’s alright even if they work remotely. However, I think hybrid is the way ahead definitely.”
We do not want to bring in employees just to ensure that they have marked their attendance. Hybrid work culture in fact will aim at bringing together people and having them work together. And again this will be only for those roles that actually need to work through the organization. Other roles might not need much organizational work and can be done remotely but that constant interaction, however, ensures there is good productivity. Also yes, the remote is here to stay and as long as the quality of the deliverable doesn’t go down, it is sure to be another work culture that will be followed. So it’s going to be a mix of diverse work environments and cultures if you ask me.
“Recruitment automation tools play an important role in assisting HR teams in improving the process in a more customized and humanized manner.”
Recruitment automation tools and technology mostly play a role to add to the experience of hiring and helping the HR teams in moving faster with the evaluation. This includes faster onboarding and hence a better hiring experience for both the candidates and the hiring managers. While these tools do help add to the experience and speed of hiring, it is the humans who are actually going to design these processes so that they can be easily customized with the tools. So it should be the right proportion of everything including recruitment tools and the human touch.
One of the best ways to assess a candidate can be to conduct interviews however conducting many rounds of these interviews may seem quite tiring. This is where the tools when used in the right processes and through the right methodology can highly benefit the hiring managers.
“One thing that will help recruitment automation gain traction would be customizing and personalizing the experience for recruiters.”
I think most organizations have started using technology for hiring however one thing that needs to be taken into account is the customization of these technologies according to the organization’s demand. It seems like a lot has still been generalized and needs that customization to be brought into the hiring process. It will be the hiring managers that will play an important role in adopting these new tools and technologies to create a customized and specific hiring environment. The way you hire for a company and the way you hire for a campus are two different types of hiring. So understanding these hiring types and customizing them should be a priority.
“Culture should be something that brings out the best in an employee and provides the most healthy environment to learn and grow.”
It is true that now every 18 months there is the arrival of new technology in the market. This has made the employees keep on learning more about these technologies and keep themselves updated. However, this is only possible if the work culture of an organization is customized in such a way that the employees get to learn and grow. So no matter how much money I get, at the end of the day, there should be something new that I have learned or a new skill that I’ve acquired. I should feel like yeah I feel proud of what I did today and must also feel encouraged to get up the next day and go back to work. Staying ahead of the trends and utilizing all the learning opportunities while ensuring there is vertical and horizontal growth is quite important.
So culture is a mix of everything right from the way an employee feels, learns, and grows and also being able to associate with the people around them. So for me, culture is a brand that an employer creates when an employee works with them and how they feel working together.
“There should be a right balance between buy and build. Buying talent is recruiting a new talent who can be an asset to the team while building refers to the learning and development initiatives along with the training provided.”
With the demand and supply gap being so high it is quite hard to always keep on buying talent. Because no matter how much you offer to a candidate, the candidate always tends to find better offers. And buying for a long time can also keep getting expensive which might affect the ROI of the organization.
It is hence necessary to strike the right balance between buying and building. While buying will imply buying new talents that are quite rare or hard to find in the industry and one that cannot be easily developed while the building will include building up of talent that can be easily developed with the help of already existing employees. So the building part is where the learning development and training come into the picture. So instead of buying try to create a smart funnel that will help employees to learn, grow and make a future career path within the organization.
“Moonlighting is something that will not be beneficial to the employees in the long run.”
See, if an employee is to work for 8 hours at a company they are supposed to give their best for those 8 hours. However, they end up dividing this time for both the organizations that they are working at. So in short, they are not providing their 100 percent on either side. This will hence create a lack of productivity and contribution from the employees’ end. So there need to be ways to identify this and bring it to a stop or define such policies that will restrict them from using such methods.
“So the distinction you need to keep in mind while hiring a fresher vs an experienced person is that the fresher needs to have the potential to be flexible and pick up new things whereas when hiring an experienced person they tend to bring in a set of skills that you need.”
So when you go out and check for a fresher they normally have the basic knowledge and the basic skills you check for the profile. And as they are quite new to the field it is easier to build up new skills and mold them into the exact requirements you are looking for. However, when talking about hiring an experienced person they tend to bring with them an experienced skill set that is needed by the organization.
What remains common when hiring both a fresher and an experienced person will be the fact that both should be open to learning more about new technology and the latest skills that are required. The potential to learn and develop should stay the same in both cases.
“A lot of talent is definitely going to flow back to the Indian market.”
While a lot of people are trying to travel abroad for career opportunities, I think hiring opportunities are increasing here in the Indian market. Especially with so many opportunities, the talent is also flowing back to India. While things might not be as robust as it is in other parts of the world, India definitely has a lot to think about in the upcoming years. Apart from looking into just the salary opportunities candidates must look into the learning opportunities, the stability, and the culture. They should think about what can I learn through this organization.
There is also an immense focus on campus hiring and hence campuses are now introducing new courses such as AIML, and Data Science. So these courses actually help one become an expert in one particular field rather than trying to teach a more generalized format of courses.
“It is quite common that you end your feedback by providing it to shortlisted candidates while those who are rejected and have provided their precious time to this recruitment process tend to get zero feedback.”
It is human nature that you move on with the selected candidate and forgets about those who have been rejected. However, even the rejected candidates have put in their best efforts and time to go through the interview process. So feedback here is the missing link. And if you are to create a good candidate experience and a good employer brand then you should not just focus on selected or shortlisted candidates you must also pay attention to those who have been rejected. Provide them with feedback. Because then they will also feel happy about being interviewed by this organization and will also be happy to let others know about their experience. So that is how you need to create a good brand and a good candidate experience.
