HR PROFESSION
Compiled by Dona Senara
HIRING STRATEGIES UNVEILED
Dr. Oshadie Korale underscores the intricacies of the recruitment process
Q: What is the role of recruitment in today’s competitive job market?
A: A competitive job market means that the number of jobseekers exceeds the available positions. Given the prevailing economic environment, and the obvious brain drain of skilled and qualified candidates, jobseekers now have a choice of jobs as there is less competition.
Businesses need to try and engage with candidates in the pre-application phase. Depending on the industry or sector, the recruitment market fluctuates.
Presently, we are seeing some recruitment freezes in the financial services and construction industries, and import sector, while
foreign recruitment is thriving. Though we have always had shortages in the IT talent pool, it has gone from bad to worse due to the brain drain.
For entry-level vacancies however, we don’t have the same issues since school leaver positions are available in abundance. Entry-level candidates need to stand out from their peers to secure a job.
Interestingly, knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and business process outsourcing (BPO), as well as marketing job opportunities, have not been affected by the economic crisis. The overall recruitment market is still alive and kicking.
Q: And what is your assessment of the brain drain?
A: We see significant migration among qualified workers, resulting in a shortage of talent for senior and skilled positions. It takes about three or four months to fill some highly skilled positions these days.
The current brain drain is a result of political turmoil and the economic crisis. Recent tax hikes and increases in electricity tariffs have also contributed to exacerbating the ongoing exodus.
Migration of labour results in the loss of potential entrepreneurs who could have contributed to our economy by increasing employment opportunities. The government should encourage entrepreneurship, implement suitable policies and identify pay gaps in certain skilled categories such as the medical profession compared to what’s offered overseas.
Political corruption in state sector recruitment should also be addressed. I feel the government is actively encouraging migration by considering short-term benefits to address the forex crisis by entering into agreements with foreign governments regarding job opportunities abroad.
Meanwhile, there is no proper plan in place to address the brain drain.
The healthcare sector and IT industry have been severely affected. IT businesses are doing their best to address the brain drain by offering salaries pegged to foreign currencies and developing organisational plans to tackle the issue.
Q: Could you outline the challenges of recruiting talent?
A: The market is candidate driven right now wherein jobseekers have the upper hand. Businesses have to work on hiring passive candidates who aren’t looking to switch roles for senior positions. Old school organisations struggle to move ahead with HR information and applicant tracking systems due to poor technical capabilities.
Moreover, HR teams are facing challenges in terms of the time taken to hire the cream of the crop. Human resources units need to complete their hiring processes in a week or two of receiving applications.
Q: What are the latest trends in recruitment?
A: Remote hiring and interviewing are the newer trends, which began during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and when working from home became popular.
Despite opening their offices physically, many entities have opted to hire employees remotely by filtering, shortlisting and conducting interviews using technologies such as Zoom and social messaging apps.
Businesses are also considering employer branding. Since jobseekers tend to undertake research on organisations before applying, the latter are investing in improving their brand image. Data driven recruitment using statistics obtained through application tracking systems and so on offer insights into changing hiring strategies.
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