An NITK, Surathkal and an OUBS, London alumnus, Srinivasa boasts of an extensive 33 years long career during which he has handled key roles across an array of enterprises. Prior to joining Adrenalin in 2021, Srinivasa was a partner at The Alternative Board (TAB), an international organization offering business coaching and peer-to peer advisory boards. He was the founder and Managing Director of Silver Cloud Solutions, a SaaS product engineering startup. He has also held leadership positions in organizations like Whirlpool of India, TVS Electronics, Ramco Systems, and iSOFT and more. In a recent interaction with Bimlesh Prasad (Correspondent, CEO Insights), Srinivasa shared his insights on various aspects pertaining to the recruitment process and the role modern day technologies are playing in this regard. Below are the key extracts from the exclusive interview –

Given concerns about AI bias, how are enterprises planning to enhance transparency in their recruiting technology to ensure fair and equitable hiring practices?
Since recruitment or talent acquisition does have certain level of human bias, companies are now experimenting with the use of AI technology to reduce the impact of this human bias in the recruitment process. As a result, we are witnessing an increased adoption of AI based recruitment systems by organizations across majority of industries in recent times. While these systems enable a quicker and equitable assessment of candidates, there is a risk of them too being biased if the algorithm is not trained properly and does not bring-in the diversity factor in the sampling and training process.

What are some the major challenges that are delaying the hiring & recruitment process?
Talent acquisition starts from having a proper workforce planning which includes understanding the job requirements of the organization, the skill gaps that needs to be addressed and similar other factors. Data plays a crucial role in this regard, wherein you need to crunch the data, analyze it, identify the gaps that need to be filled and accordingly advertise those positions that need to be filled. There is a significant time that is consumed during this phase, which is now cut-down significantly by using predictive algorithms and workforce planning tools. Secondly, when you’re advertising for candidates using multiple channels, the same can now be automated through AI engines or RPA (also called adtech nowadays) to post across multiple channels. This will enable companies to improve the speed with which they can reach candidates and hire them. Third challenge is to assemble a team of interviewers for filling-in a position whose skills do not exist in that organization. As a result, there are now interviewers on hire who will help companies to hire employees with very niche tech skillsets and they are also available on short notice.

Suggest a few ways in which companies can address the challenge of social skills deficit to maintain effective communication and collaboration among employees.

To have a proper employee engagement, there are a few steps organizations must ensure. Firstly, the employee must feel connected and be committed to the organizational purpose. Secondly, he/she must feel energized while doing their work in the organization. Thirdly, they must feel satisfied with the role that they are playing in the organization. It is important for the organizations to figure-out means to balance between the employee’s job role and things that he/she cares about to enhance the employee engagement. Additionally, giving employees the flexibility to both do their jobs and try-out new tasks outside their interests also goes a long way in improving the employee engagement and cross-functional collaboration across the organization.

Giving employees the flexibility to both do their jobs and try-out new tasks outside their interests improves employee engagement and cross-functional collaboration across the organization.

How can organizations strategize to attract a more diverse talent pool and expand talent pipelines for nontraditional candidates?
The first aspect to pay attention to in terms of talent acquisition is the positioning of the brand in the candidate’s mind. Thus, it is necessary for companies to first look at their brand positioning and see whether they are attractive to a diverse pool of candidates. Additionally, companies must make sure to do their job advertising across multiple channels and do not stick to only conventional channels. Also, the style in which the job description is written in the job post plays a significant impact on attracting candidates from diverse demographics. Another effective step in this regard is to keep track of all the candidates who have rejected the company’s offer and get to know the reasons for them declining the offer.

Throw some light on the impact of remote interviewing and other emerging trends in the recruitment process.
Remote interviewing has witnessed widespread adoption in our industry recently. Easy access to diverse skillsets that are available in the market and time saving across the entire interview process are the key factors that are driving the growth of remote interviewing today. While there are a flood of remote interviewing platforms that are easily available in the market today, we must also pay close attention to the challenges that come associated with it. The interviewer will not be able to pick other nuances of the candidate such as body language in a remote interview setup. However, the host of advantages that it offers easily outweighs the disadvantages. Thus, it is safe to say that remote interviewing, especially in the IT & ITeS sector is here to stay. As a result, there is a lot of investment that is happening lately to improve the candidate experience. Also, predictive analytics is playing a huge role in talent acquisition by enabling companies to identify the best candidate profile that is suitable for a particular position. People are now more open towards trying-out non-traditional ways of working such as freelancing for an organization for a particular time period or project and then moving on to working with other organizations. Additionally, we are seeing a lot of gamification entering into the recruitment process, wherein companies are using online gaming as a tool to access the candidates’ decision making skills.