The birth of a community, the IT Recruiter and a system

Recruiter: The power behind the transactions to convert a CEO’s press release to truth.

This piece of writing may look like history now, not far behind, in less than 15 years, there was a birth of a new breed, a community called IT Recruiter and a system of IT Recruitment evolved. The progress has been so fast paced that the footprints don't seem to remain. To relive those moments, here is a solute to the great "IT RECRUITER". The young community of the talented hunters of the talented

Statements and interviews of the top executives declaring that the company will hire and make investments has always been the best form of PR to showcase the wellbeing and the health of the company. Newspapers have carried reports with projections of headcount for coming five years. Making these statements come true was the recruitment community preparing for a big growth. Beginning with the question “Are you looking for a change” the recruiters start their hunt.

It s not to take away the credit due to others in the organisation in making this happen. Recruitment teams have delivered in agreed timelines under trying conditions. I am amazed at how recruiters do their job. Recruiter community is very dear to me. The whole process of recruitment excites me. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest recruiters, team leads, managers in recruitment. I have often tried to list down the qualities of a good recruiter, each time, I have noted a certain behavior that makes a good recruiter, I am drawn to admire that these are the very same skills and behaviors that are required to succeed in many career paths. The recruitment community of the company creates the new culture of the company with the additional recruits in the overall composition of employees.

Demand and Supply: It was a perfect match of demand and supply, at a point of time, 1995 onwards till around 2000, the demand for talented professionals was growing; the improved economy, impact of boom in engineering education of 1990s was now delivering new batches of engineers. The demand was coming from centers of IT more so from Bangalore. Everyone in the recruitment business seemed fully occupied.

Channels: There was also surge of new recruitment consultants who opened shop and did take on the established mighty. There was good demand for everyone who understood the business to make it good. There was a new breed of recruitment agencies, who had a better understanding of the raising demand and who could respond with the required speed. New hiring methods, new campaigns were needed to attract talent.

Advertising: There was need in the advertising world to write good copy for the recruitment advertisement. The erstwhile appointment advertisements were clearly for the mechanical and engineering positions especially for the Middle East and some local advertisements. The new recruitment advertisements were different, these had to sell the company, position, location and talk of better workplaces and also mention the technical skills required for the job. A different way to create different kind of demand, copy writers of the ad agencies learned a few smart technical terms, the recruitments advertisements turned potent flashed in colour in the ever increasing pages of appointment advertisement supplements. The world of recruitment started coming closer to planning schedule for advertisements, planned walk-ins, arrange people to conduct the evaluation. The economics of it all started to show up, the engagement rates started to increase, the overall demand for housing, transport and everything connected to increased consumption.

A new approach was needed: Back to the recruitment scenario, there seemed a need for proper system at all levels in recruitment within and outside organisations.

The talented professionals were in great demand, as the Y2K bug was bothering the US. Recruitment was not as easy and definitely not as comfortable as it is today. The candidates were at one end, the recruiters were at another, connecting one another was itself a major challenge. The subsequent growth of email registrations, use of mobile phones made the whole contact process easier. The available talent was mostly engaged some definitely looking for a change, new talent had to be found, contacted, evaluated and engaged.

As a system, most companies were not at all prepared for the number of people they were engaging. The recruiters did their job of getting to the candidates, the surge in demand and excess supply put the engaging managers of company’s evaluation skills to test. Typical engaging managers had no clue, how to evaluate, how to engage, any of the managers, did not even know how to interview candidates. The demand frenzy was such; all of this was alright, as long as talent was on board and could be engaged.

A new batch of smart recruiters actually came from the recruitment consultants, who were trained to fulfill, people with different qualifications were attracted to recruit. The bigger companies found it easier to pick these trained recruiters, who were actually, a lot smarter, who knew technologies, which companies worked in these areas and the way to contact the candidates.

The process of recruitment has evolved with the change in the way in which candidates make them selves available today. Earlier, the hard copies of the resumes prepared in the DTP centers were a norm. The DTP centers, photocopiers, made good business. Many switched to floppy disks, but never the floppy disks weathered the requirement for too long. These hard copies were circulated to different companies and recruitment consultants.

I will draw a lot of inspiration from your comments, my dear "IT RECRUITER". To be continued