Recruitment – Dutch Uncles

Apna, Helping Millions of blue and Gray-Collar Workers

Anju Nambiar — Sat, 17 Jul 2021 08:35:09 +0000

If you’ve been on LinkedIn, you’ll know that it’s a very Professional platform with industry leaders and experts sharing their thought leadership insights regularly. However, it’s safe to say that there’s not many opportunities for blue and gray collar job searching, or networking. Say a plumber or a carpenter joins LinkedIn. There’s not much he/she can do to connect with his peers or find recruiters hiring through the platform. But another big problem in India when it comes to Professional Networking is that most of the workers across the country are not even aware of a platform like LinkedIn.

Apna, the Recruitment Start-up

Apna is a Professional Networking start-up created by an Apple alum. Headquartered in Bengaluru, it’s popular for its Professional Networking platform for blue and gray collar Indian workers. The start-up is bridging the networking gap for the low rung of workers in India. The platform is free to use for job seekers and provides them an opportunity to connect with the top recruiters in the country. They have a mobile app that goes by the same name which is available in multiple languages.

Professional Networking – The LinkedIn for Blue and Grey Collar workers

Apna is a pioneer in the blue and gray collar workforce sector of India. They are enabling the hundreds of low-skilled workers in India to create a digital professional identity for themselves and get access to high-quality jobs.

Apna’s services for India’s Workforce

On Apna’s platform, users can upskill themselves, join communities of job seekers in their own league and get employed. Users can connect with employers who are offering attractive jobs for their skillsets and discover opportunities they wouldn’t have stumbled upon otherwise. They also get a platform to submit digital applications and interact with potential employers. Other features of Apna which job seekers can benefit from include interview performance prep.

Designations available for skilled professionals

Technical roles are up for grabs for blue and gray collar workers. Also, job roles like Carpenter, Painter and Field Sales Agent are the prominent job opportunities available on Apna.

Apna’s numbers speak for itself

The total user base of Apna is averaging around the 10 M mark. The month of May saw 15 M job interviews conducted through their app. It currently hosts over 10,000 top-notch recruiters including unicorn start-ups. Apna’s market position is strengthened to the level that they can open their services in a new Indian city and drive 10,000 job interviews there in a span of two days.

Apna’s Differentiators – why are they different?

Their main differentiator is that the platform is available in multiple languages. They are a vernacular professional networking platform for workers across India who are well-versed in their native, local languages. The next differentiator of the start-up is that they are giving recruiters an avenue to connect with hyperlocal candidates with relevant skills who are difficult to find otherwise. Employers can successfully find high quality talent on Apna with the lowest friction possible compared to traditional recruiting practices for the Blue and Gray workforce segment.

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Noteworthy start-ups in India offering conversational AI and voice based B2B solutions.

What’s in it for me?

The market for vernacular medium solutions in India is growing. Start-ups offering their services in multiple Indian languages can see massive increase in their target consumer base. Vernacular consumer tech start-ups targeting niche customers like gamers (Winzo), social networking app for farmers (Krishify), Instant Messaging app (ShareChat) and Apna are all seeing investor interest.

Consumer tech start-ups venturing into the vernacular space need to create special algorithms for Indian languages and dialects which will be the most challenging part. Due to the complex nature of Indian dialects that have micro variations depending on the geography, you will need to invest heavily in creating an error-free ecosystem for your product/service. You will also need to hire translators, language experts and programmers who can code comfortably in the language of choice. The Indian vernacular consumer base will be 540 M strong in 2022. There is a huge demand and supply gap in the hyper local consumer tech space which start-ups can attempt to fill.

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5 key points for a start-up to handle recruiting challenges

Anju Nambiar — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 06:40:02 +0000

Recruiting efforts and hiring always puts start-ups in a fix. While start-ups are on the lookout for deserving candidates that fit in perfectly with requirements, it’s a tough call between wanting to pinch pennies and making the right investment on skilled talent. Even if funding is pouring in, optimal resource utilisation is crucial if you want your start-up to scale up and eventually break into the unicorn or IPO league. Here are 5 key tips to help your start-up navigate the recruiting challenge:

Look for the right balance between skill and experience

Take the middle road when going for experienced candidates and choosing young, fresh-off-the-boat graduates. You need to go for a candidate who’s not too seasoned (they usually expect a fat pay-check) and one who has a strong skill set (someone who is certified and with a measurable portfolio/experience).

This way you can get your hands on a decent candidate who won’t consume a major chunk of the HR budget and will bring in the right mix of talent and expertise even if they aren’t hired for an executive level position.

Sustainable Hiring

As the trend of start-up funding accelerates, so does the trend of winning massive pay cheques. Especially in the Enterprise Tech sector, for qualified professionals skilled in new-age technologies like AI, Blockchain, IoT, and cybersecurity, big pay packages are trending in the job market.

In a bid to acquire proficient talent, it’s important not to press the panic button and compromise on your sustainable recruiting practises. Don’t get into a competition with other companies and offer pay packages that adhere to market standards.

Play to your strengths

Start-ups are clearly at an advantage when it comes to the onboarding process. Unlike large enterprises, where new hires must go from pillar to post, completing one interview round after the other. In the case of start-ups, the final interview with the key decision maker like the Hiring Manager or the CEO occurs soon enough. There are no endless forms to fill out or multiple process checks to be completed. Onboarding is usually quick and easy for start-ups. Take advantage of your speed of recruiting to offer candidates a quick hassle-free onboarding process. It’s also easy to facilitate meetings with the final decision maker in your company. So, allow candidates to experience the transparency of start-up hiring.

Unconventional Hiring

Technology based hiring software that relies on AI and Machine Learning are often difficult to procure for start-ups since they are not feasible from a cost perspective. Investing in Hiring technology or being limited only to metro cities while sourcing candidates may prove to be expensive. Scour candidates in the off-beat track like Tier II and III cities, and even from remote locations in India. Since the pandemic has impacted the job market severely, raw talent can be found in native areas across the country. Connect with candidates remotely and onboard them virtually. This way you will be helping deserving people with the right opportunities and you can optimise costs by taking the off-beaten path.

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You need self-managed, upbeat candidates to onboard who are motivated and independent.

Hire self-managed, upbeat people

For a start-up that’s focused on rapid growth, hand-holding and micromanaging employees is potentially taking several steps backwards. You need self-managed, upbeat candidates to onboard who are motivated and independent.

Keep an eye out for business acquaintances, former colleagues, or even people you have a personal equation with and who you can vouch for in terms of their commitment. Since the environment in a start-up is very dynamic and rarely sticks to a strict routine, you need candidates who are adaptable. Make sure that the person you are hiring is aware of the uncertainties that come with working in a start-up.

Hire people who are looking for a challenge and for the opportunity to grow and learn over someone who’s looking for a safety net and waiting to settle down.

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Kerala Start-up Mission’s Zappyhire Speeds up Hiring

Anju Nambiar — Mon, 31 May 2021 06:05:04 +0000

Zappyhire provides an AI Talent Acquisition Suite which quickens the job hiring process for organisations. Zappyhire is a start-up based in Kochi, Kerala with a mission to enable spot on talent hiring at an accelerated pace. Founded in 2018, Zappyhire’s B2B product automates the recruiting process. It has transformed the recruiting experience both for candidates as well as for recruiters. Their intelligent recruiting platform is mainly aimed at cutting down the ‘time to hire’. Their end-to-end recruiting system performs screening, assessments, personalised engagements, and onboarding of the right talent.

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The company had bagged investment from a past edition of the Seeding Kerala Summit, KSUM’s flagship Angel Investors Summit.

KSUM and Zappyhire

Zappyhire is under the umbrella of the Kerala Start-up Mission. They are presently incubated at KSUM’s Integrated Start-up Complex at Kalamassery, Kerala. KSUM helped Zappyhire conduct its first hiring focused hackathon at the ISC in 2019. KSUM staff have also assisted Zappyhire with legal and accounting support. NASSCOM and KSUM have been pivotal along Zappyhire’s journey of scaling up. The company had bagged investment from a past edition of the Seeding Kerala Summit, KSUM’s flagship Angel Investors Summit.

How Zappyhire speeds up hiring

Zappyhire makes the traditional hiring process simple by facilitating quick induction of new hires. Their AI based platform leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its sub technologies like Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to automate redundant tasks in the recruiting process. It transforms traditional recruitment into smart recruitment. Key tasks like repetitive back-and-forth with candidates, filtering out applicants with the best fitting qualification criteria are made smart with Zeppyhire’s technology solution. Zappyhire’s end-to-end recruiting system speeds up hiring through an intelligent, data-backed, and insight-driven process.

What’s in it for me?

Finding the best employee for the job is getting harder what with the disruptions of the pandemic which have seeped even into HR and job search. Talented candidates are unable to find the job that’s best suited for their skills. HR Tech solutions like the ones offered by Zappyhire bridges the digital divide between the employee and the recruiter who are a perfect match for each other.

If you are a start-up who thinks you can benefit from digitally hiring the best fitting candidates in quick time, consider investing in AI based recruiting solutions. It will make the screening process smart and intelligent, and your resources will be freed up from time consuming, redundant tasks. Small recruitment agencies and businesses across a plethora of industries can scale up much faster with AI based recruiting.

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How to Build a Recruitment Process to Hire Top Talent for Small Businesses?

Preeti Verma — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 10:35:04 +0000

A company is called unique when it has an exceptional idea or concept and extraordinary people working by its side. And to get the exceptional people, a strong recruitment process is mandatory. But, recruiting a right talent for the right position at a right place is a challenge for any size business. Each and every person has a set of roles and responsibilities that helps a company to grow further.

To build a pool of talent in any company, the Human Resource department is initially set up. It is then the core responsibility of a Human Resource department to hire the talent for the respective department. This hiring process involves everything from identifying, attracting, screening, shortlisting, interviewing, selecting, hiring, and onboarding employees.

The recruitment teams can depend on the size of a company. Moreover, in a sized organisation, recruitment is typically the responsibility of a recruiting manager. On the other hand, many companies outsource their recruiting needs from the third party. And some rely mostly on advertisements, job boards or sites, and social media platforms to recruit talent for their new positions. Some companies also prefer recruitment software to fulfil their hiring requirements.

Before starting a recruitment process, set out a few goals. Allocate a budget for your candidate, pre-plan things in advance so that you get the best from the process. According to a report, it is estimated that, on average it takes 36 days to fill a given position and it costs over $4,425. Many of them will agree that small businesses do not have an extended budget or that kind of time to dedicate to hiring for every new employee. However, this can be done by improving their efficiency and effectiveness of the recruitment process. Before moving ahead, here are few guiding tips that will help you in building a strong recruitment process to hire top talent for small businesses.

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There are many companies, which are luring their existing employees to share referrals for the desired positions in the company. In exchange, companies offer referral bonuses

Ways to make recruitment process efficient

Describe the Job in Detail

Describing the job in detail is not actually a part of recruitment strategy, but it is a quick way to improve your recruiting success. Hiring a top talent means you need to attract elite candidates. If you want your company to stand out in a crowd, then this is the best way. The best job descriptions are specific and clear. They outline what the job entails and what actually they are looking for in a candidate. Try to keep your job description clear and precise so that applicants feel comfortable reading through it entirely. It can be beneficial to ask your team to help write the job description so it is as accurate as possible.

Place an emphasis on writing reasonable job descriptions. Some companies ask for significantly too much or too little in their job descriptions. A company looking for an entry-level employee may ask for three to five years of experience in a role, which may not be a reasonable request given the volume of recent college graduates applying for entry-level jobs. Other companies may use broad phrases like ‘seeking someone with an entrepreneurial spirit,’ which is ambiguous and subjective. Write specific and reasonable job descriptions. Be fair about what you are asking for, and make sure the qualifications you want are specifically addressed.

Simultaneously, it is important to be detailed and reasonable in your job posting. Sometimes job postings ask for too much and plenty of qualified people drop from the listing because they feel they can’t do the job. Make sure that you put down the actual things that are required for the job. Don’t put 10 years of experience as a requirement when someone can do it with just two years of experience.

Using Social Media For Recruitment Process

Social media is an important tool that can set your business to new heights. On the same side, it can help the company to recruit new talents. The company can use its social media accounts to give its potential employees a sneak peek of its work or what it is like to work for its business. Social recruiting also known as social hiring and social media recruitment is a method of using social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook to advertise jobs. This tool also helps in finding new talents, and communicating with potential recruits about company culture. These platforms also help a company in making a job post much more interesting than just bullet points on a page describing duties.

Using Personal and Professional Contacts

Sometimes personal and professional contacts can be of great help. Spreading mouth-to-mouth information can attract the right candidate. There are many big organisations, which are still following this process. This method takes a little more effort, but believe me it is well worth. Use your own contact list to search for potential employees or for people who may be able to refer someone. Find potential candidates either in your personal contact list or in your professional contact list. You just have to filter your contact list to find the right source, who can help you get in the right person.

Other Job Listing Sites for Recruitment Process

These days there are a huge number of jobs listing sites that can take all your responsibilities in hunting for a perfect candidate. Similarly, local trade associations offer a great resource for a pool of talent and people who are passionate about the type of work they do. You will probably be able to post jobs for free in their bulletins or newsletters. Like if looking for an entry level position then local colleges, universities and junior colleges generally have career centers. These centers are of great help, they welcome job postings and they can share with their students and alumni. In the same way, if you are looking for someone in mid senior level, business colleges and specialty schools cater to people going back for advanced degrees. Contact their career centers or the departments that most closely relate to the position you are hoping to fill. If a person is out of a job then that doesn’t mean that he/she is incapable or not talented for that particular position. There are unemployment offices, which also help unemployed people to get jobs.

Narrowing Down the Resume via Comparison

Become more efficient with your interviewing processes by narrowing your job requirements down to only those skills that are really required to do the job. Compare your job requirements list to the resumes you receive for the job and find places, where you might be able to compromise. You won’t be the first one to compromise on the original job requirements to allow a talented employee to join the organisation. In fact, 52 per cent of recruiters tell us they compromise to be realistic when a resume doesn’t match a job description. Before you discount a candidate’s application, consider how their skills might fit into your organisation and make sure you aren’t looking for the elusive purple squirrel.

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Write specific and reasonable job descriptions. Sometimes job postings ask for too much and plenty of qualified people drop from the listing because they feel they can't do the job

Recruiting Process Through Referrals

There are many companies, which are luring their existing employees to share referrals for the desired positions in the company. In exchange, companies offer referral bonuses. It is a serious perk for employees, who want to help their friends find employment. And in return for job seekers, this informality immediately breeds confidence to reach out and acing the interview. While this fits under the social media umbrella, you could also encourage your employees to post on their own. It stands to reason that there’s a higher likelihood someone will fit in with a company’s culture if they already get along with at least one person.

Offer a Well-rounded Benefits Package

A growing number of employees, particularly millennials, are these days willing to moderate their salary expectations in favour of a well-rounded, balanced work environment. By offering such perks as flexible schedules, rewards cards for business expenses, health insurance and retirement packages, you can make your company seem compelling and pleasant, even if you don’t pay the highest rates around. Wise investments in employee benefits may offset costs because they’ll allow you to retain top talent without having to issue exorbitantly high pay checks.

Multiple Layer of Zeroing In

The churning out process varies from company to company and role to role. In a standard interview process, candidates must go through a phone screen, onsite interview, reference checks, and the offer stage. The initial phone interview is typically conducted by the recruiter for the role. However, for high priority candidates it can help to have the hiring manager take the call. The purpose of a phone interview is to make sure that you advance appropriate and qualified people to the next stage.

The onsite interview is perhaps the most make-or-break moment of the entire recruitment process. This is when you get the information you need to say goodbye to a candidate or extend them an offer to become part of your team. Therefore, it is important to structure your interview process. Establish what you are looking for in a candidate before they come in. If you are deciding between two candidates, you can reduce the effects of unconscious bias with an objective framework for evaluation. You can evaluate different areas such as culture fit, behavioural fit, skills fit, etc. Similarly, it is important to collect interview feedback quickly. When one person is in charge, you can be a lot more confident that great care goes into each and every hiring decision. The responsible stakeholder can’t shrug off a poor hire as just a group call. In a way, hiring managers are more likely to act as advocates and make sure new hires are successful when they feel direct responsibility for the final say.

If, in case, you are ready to make an offer. Resist the urge until you have done thorough reference checks. The cost of hiring a mediocre performer into your organisation is great, and it is ultimately in your team’s best interest to take reference checks seriously. But to make reference checks worth your while, make sure you are asking the right questions. It is hard to get the full picture from references unless you do some digging.

Emphasis on Diversity in the Recruitment Process

Building a diverse team enables you to be more innovative. If everyone you work with has the same work experiences as you, then how can you get different, creative ideas? A diverse team is important to growth and brings out more creativity. So, make sure your job descriptions aren’t limiting your candidate pool. Avoid using pronouns in your job descriptions. You can initially ask some basic questions through email, or conduct an initial interview by phone before meeting in person to avoid judging a candidate based on appearance. Consider candidates from diverse backgrounds, who possess core competencies and transferable skills. They may bring a fresh perspective to your team.

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Decoding Start-up Unicorns and the Pace of Recruitment in 2021

Chayanika Sen — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 10:35:05 +0000

The COVID-19 pandemic and the global lockdown have led to mass hysteria, growing unemployment, and liquidity crunch across the world. While the job loss wave has hit India too, the scene is quite different in the Indian startup ecosystem. Amidst the pandemic, in 2020, several Indian startups like Nykaa, Razorpay, Postman, Zerodha, Unacademy achieved the Unicorn status reaching the coveted $1 billion dollar in valuation mark. In fact, it has been projected that the Indian Unicorn club is expected to grow steadily through 2021. By 2025, India is expected to have 100 unicorns. As India embraces digital acceleration and deep tech adoption more so, after the COVID-19, the country has seen a rapid growth trajectory, especially in the tech startup space. A recent joint report titled “Indian Tech Start-Up Ecosystem – On the March to Trillion Dollar Economy” published by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) and Zinnov, global management and strategy consulting firm, revealed that 2020 saw 1600 tech startups with a record number of 12 new unicorns added in 2020. The year-on-year growth for tech startup over the last year has been 8-10%.

The COVID-19 pandemic played a major role in the digital adoption and shift to the internet in the country. This has created new business opportunities and tech startups are leveraging these areas, especially in SaaS based solutions. The NASSCOM report further mentions that 19% of the tech startups are leveraging deep tech solutions to build unique products suited for market expansions. The deep tech space is thus seeing a tremendous growth momentum, which is also attracting a lot of Venture Capitalists (VC) to invest in these startups. While 14% of the total investment is in the deep tech area, 87% of all the deep tech investments are in the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning area.

The seed-stage investments are also recovering at a faster rate. The seed-stage funding has recovered more than 90% from 2019 to 2020. For the first time funding, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Edtech, and AgriTech industries are seeing positive growth.

Amidst the pandemic, the Indian tech startups not only managed to stay afloat, but they are actively identifying the opportunities and thus converting the crisis to opportunity. Interestingly, the digital maturity of India has jumped from 34% to 55% over the last couple of years. While job loss became a major concern in the last year, Indian tech startups are actively looking to recruit skilled candidates and fill the quickly growing demand for specialized skill sets.

Startups that became a unicorn in 2020 are now all set to ramp up their hiring across domains, including data science teams, tech, product, sales, marketing, operations, engineering, etc. Recent news mentions that these companies that became $1 billion in valuation in 2020 are now hungry for growth and are looking to recruit 10-100% to drive market expansion as well as invest in product development.

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While job loss became a major concern in the last year, Indian tech startups are actively looking to recruit skilled candidates and fill the quickly growing demand for specialized skill sets.

Startup Unicorns Which Are Planning to Recruit

Razorpay

Razorpay is a Fintech company that became a unicorn in 2020 amidst the pandemic. The company is likely to recruit over 500 odd employees, mostly across engineering and product teams, as the company focuses on building solutions for small and mid-size businesses.

Zenoti

The homegrown multinational company that is the other unicorn to get added to the unicorn club, is Zenoti. This software product company is looking to add over 400 employees to its headcount. While the company is looking to recruit most of the talent in India, they are also looking out candidates for Seattle, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The present strength of the company is 550. The company is planning to hire for new product development as well as for market expansion and looking for candidates in different areas, including sales and marketing roles.

PineLabs

The other unicorn looking to hire is PineLabs. PineLabs became the first unicorn of 2020, where the funding round was pegged at $100-$150 dollar. Founded in 1998, this Noida based startup is a merchant platform and makes software for point of sale (PoS) machines. The company serves close to 140,000 merchants across 450,000 network points. The company is actively hiring and has stated to add 300 more employees to its existing employee base. The roles are majorly in the sales and tech space. The company has different digital payment offerings for its users.

Postman

The Bengaluru based SaaS startup provides a platform to software developers to accelerate the development process. The platform lets developers collaborate with different stakeholders. Postman is known to be the fastest SaaS startup that has reached the unicorn status. The company caters to more than 500,000 companies globally and is used by 98% of the Fortune 500 companies. The company is now looking to double its team size this year. It is now aiming to hire leaders across engineering, products, and design. The company’s hiring strategy will be focused on strengthening its artificial intelligence, product development, technology, engineering etc.

Glance

The other company recently added to the unicorn club and has reached $1 billion in valuation and is looking to expand its team base. The company’s current headcount is 400, and it is looking to hire 30-40% of its current headcount.

Cars24

Another unicorn is looking to increase its employee strength by 10-20%. The used car segment is seeing strong tailwinds after the pandemic, and the company is looking to add more headcounts to its 3000 members strong team. However, recruitment would be more cautious.

People are relying more on online medicine delivery after the coronavirus outbreak, and the e-pharmacy sector had seen some major traction last year. This sector is booming well, and companies like Ascent Health and Wellness Solutions are looking to hire more candidates this year. In a news report, the company CEO mentioned that they are planning to hire 4,000-5,000 people this year as they continue to expand their pharmacy business. The company plans to continue its tie ups with pharmacies which is projected at 1 lakh. Currently, the company has 50,000 tie ups.

Other Unicorns to Watch out: Who Else Might Recruit in 2021?

Although these startups are being recently added to the unicorn list, their hiring plans are undisclosed at the time of writing this article. However, it would be worth watching out for.

Nykaa

It is an online lifestyle and beauty marketplace and is looking for a $3 billion IPO this year.

FirstCry

After a decade of its inception, FirstCry earned unicorn status in 2020. The company had raised $400 in funding from SoftBank in February 2020. Although there is no update for its hiring plan for 2021, it would be exciting to watch its growth in terms of recruitment.

Zerodha

Started as a bootstrapped startup, Zerodha has now reached the unicorn status with a valuation of $3 billion. Zerodha, a technology – based brokerage firm, has recorded tremendous growth in 2020, doubling its average monthly user addition from the pre covid times.

Unacademy

A well-known brand in the edtech space has made five acquisitions last year and is committed to growth this year. This comes as no wonder because among the few industries that are seeing excess growth as the aftermath of the covid-19 is edtech. The industry has attracted $4.9 billion already last year in investment and looking at the prospect of the edtech industry, we can expect to see hiring here.

Daily Hunt

Although we are not confirmed, it is not hard to guess that the company definitely has some growth plans, even though not only through hiring because this is one of the 30 companies that received funding from Google’s Digitization India Fund.

Along with these unicorns of 2020, Digit Insurance became India’s first unicorn for 2021. Valued at $1.9 billion to enter the unicorn club in 2021, this Bengaluru-based startup offers a user-friendly platform that leverages technology to make the process of buying insurance a seamless one. Jyoti Bansal’s B2B startup, Harness, also earned unicorn status with a $1.7 billion valuation after raising $115M. Experts have projected that India is all poised to have at least 50 unicorns by 2025, and it would be great to watch how the startups shape their hiring strategies in the coming months.

Expected Pay Package

While the salary varies to a great extent depending on the role and seniority level, the average salary package one can expect is between INR 15 lakhs – INR 60 lakhs per annum. The pay package can go higher to crores for senior leadership roles. A survey done on 1050 organizations across 20 sectors suggest a salary hike of 7.3% in 2021. The survey further revealed that hi-tech, IT, IT-enabled services, life sciences, professional services, e-commerce, and chemical industries are going to see the highest rise in salaries.

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72% of the startups founders revealed that they are likely to increase their recruitment this year.

Major Challenges Startups Face to Recruit

While investments are coming in and startups are looking to recruit, the challenge that is poised now is finding the right talent. In a survey, 52% of the founders mentioned that hiring right is the biggest challenge for them. While high growth companies attract the talent pool, since the talent pool is limited, getting them onboard gets difficult. Time is another challenge for startups when it comes to hiring. While still in the stage of defining the buyer persona, looking for partners to test your MVP, working on a pitch deck, you also need to make your hiring strategy and recruit the right candidate, it definitely poises the startup in a challenging situation. Another major challenge for startups is building their brand identity. Since not many people know about the brand, candidates may feel sceptical about joining. Hence brands need to work on their digital presence and work actively on their employer branding to attract the talent pool.

The Takeaway

Overall, hiring in startups has grown significantly since 2019. Even when job loss is on the rise, Indian startups are likely to see hiring picking up this year as startups bounce back in business improving their revenues. The growth now is tremendous, and some are seeing growth more than the pre covid times. In a survey conducted by InnoVen Capital, 72% of the startups founders revealed that they are likely to increase their recruitment this year. While some companies had to take harsher measures like cut down on jobs and salaries to recover from the hit, they are now back in the market and ready to ramp up their teams. While edtech, fintech, health tech hiring was seized last year, startups operating in these industries are expected to see an increase in recruitment in 2021. It would be interesting to keep a tab on the job market and watch how these startups perform in hiring in the coming months.

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Which Unicorns Are To Hire In 2021?

Aakash Sharma — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 06:30:07 +0000

New startups which touched the benchmark of becoming unicorns in 2020 are looking to boost their workforce, primarily on the fronts of products, technology, engineering, sales, business and data science activities in 2021. Of the eleven unicorn startups minted in the last year, six have confirmed their hiring plans for 2021.

Depending on the department and location, these jobs’ work packages are likely to range from Rs. 15 lakh to Rs. 60 lakh per year. Interestingly, the senior management work package will reportedly be in the vicinity of Rs. 1 crore and above.

Who Are These New Indian Unicorns?

The new startup unicorns – Pine Labs, Zenoti, Postman, Razorpay, Cars24 and Glance – are expanding their teams by 10-100%, or up to 2,000 to 2,500 employees, to drive market expansion and invest in product development.

Razorpay

According to Razorpay‘s vice president for human operations Anuradha Bharat, the fintech unicorn will have about 500 employees in coming months. Most of the recruitments will involve engineers and product groups to enhance new solutions. The company also aims to develop new payment and banking solutions for traders in SMEs.

Zenoti

Software-product company and unicorn Zenotti is looking to recruit more than 400 new hires. Most of the roles will be in India with expansions in the US, England, and Australia. The company currently employs 550 employees.

Pine Labs

Fintech and digital payments unicorn PineLabs aims to hire 300 sales and technical employees in the January-March financial quarter. The company will strengthen its digital payment services in India, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, and boost its already set presence in Southeast Asia.

Postman

Postman, the software startup, is the latest to join India’s unicorn club and is trying to double its teams and appoint product, engineering, and design leaders. It has 464 employees currently.

Glance

Glance, the unicorn club’s newest addition, offers personalized content powered by artificial intelligence in many languages. The company reached a $1 billion valuation in December 2020 and is looking to increase its human capital by 30-40%. The company currently has 400 employees.

CARS24

CARS24, the online car trading platform, is looking to increase its workforce in a range of 10% to 20%. The company currently employs more than 3,000 people and is searching for people to join its technology, product, information science, business, retail and sales teams.

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With recovery from COVID-19, more and more unicorns will plan to expand business operations, subsequently hiring more people for their workforce.

Other Unicorns Which Might Hire

While other unicorns minted in 2020, including Zerodha, Nykaa, FirstCry, Unacademy and Daily Hunt, have not come out with notifications about increasing their workforce, they are expected to hire new people too.

Industry experts have projected that Daily Hunt certainly has a plan for growing the workforce, if not just a commitment, as it is one of 30 companies funded by the Google’s Digitization India Fund.

Nykaa, a trusted online lifestyle and beauty marketplace, plans to create a $3 billion IPO this year. Unacademy, the edtech platform, engaged in five acquisitions and developments in 2020. Moreover, edtech has become a lucrative emerging industry, attracting $4.9 billion last year in investments last year.

As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, the economic recovery in India is bound to happen. With that recovery, more and more unicorns will plan to expand business operations, subsequently hiring more people for their workforce. Anyway, keep watching this space for more hiring information by India’s top companies.

The post Which Unicorns Are To Hire In 2021? appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Hiring Bias: A dangerous trap In The Hiring Process

Chayanika Sen — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 16:46:53 +0000

Sudha is a qualified engineer with a B-school degree. Sudha worked for several MNCs before she went for a sabbatical after she had her first child. When her child grew up, she considered going back to work. She started applying to different organizations, but unfortunately, her applications were rejected by every recruiter. She was subjected to hiring mistake or bias because the recruiters assumed she was not fit for the job because of age and career gap.

Miten, a fresh graduate from a tier 2 B-school, failed to impress the recruiters who were biased towards only Ivy League colleges. Another common hiring bias that we get to see frequently.

Ruben’s application was rejected because the recruiter was not impressed with his picture attached to his resume. It may sound ridiculous, but beauty bias is common where it is perceived that the most beautiful person is the most successful person. Based on this assumption, recruiters may make hiring mistakes. We then ask irrelevant questions to support our assumptions.

Yes, hiring biases are a reality. Often, we are quick to make decisions without even realizing it. Decisions are made just by seeing the resume without giving fair chances to the job applicant. Such external factors often cloud the thoughts of the recruiters while making a hiring decision.

Hiring biases occur based on gender, religion, disability, and the candidates’ past background, although these factors have no impact on the person’s ability to perform the job. On the contrary, research has shown that organizations with a diverse workforce (for example, high on gender, racial, or ethnic diversity perform better than their competitors.

What are the common hiring biases?

There are as many as 13 different hiring biases. Let’s look at the most common biases.

Halo or Horn bias

This is one of the most common biases that allow a particular trait to influence our decision making. In the above-discussed scenarios, Ruben’s case is a typical example of Halo or Horn bias, where a candidate is subjected to hiring bias because of the appearance. A halo hiring mistake can also happen due to a particular habit trait or even a person with a name, say “X”! Here are some more examples of Halo or Horn bias:

Jon fixed the scanner – “John can fix anything.”
Martha made a mistake – “Martha is not serious about her work.”
Sid graduated from a particular college – The hiring manager thinks, “I don’t hire from that college; they are too snob.”

Recency bias

A recent event can influence our judging and thus creates a bias. We don’t remember from our past learning, and remember only the last thing that happened and think that will happen every time. Let us explain with an example.

“The last time we hired from XYZ college, it didn’t go well. Let’s not hire from that college again.”

“The last time we hired A and B from the competitor company worked well. Let’s do it again.”

Anchoring bias

The next common hiring mistake is anchoring bias. When we need to decide, we tend to rely more on and choose based on the first piece of information. And any deviation from it causes a bias.

“We will never find another employee like Rita.” Rita is the anchor here. Every new applicant gets compared with Rita.

Confirmation bias

When we already have a belief, and it gets confirmed by a new piece of information, it is a case of confirmation bias. The information has a selective representation of the candidate; thus, any judgment based on it is a hiring mistake.

Commitment bias

We tend to remain committed to a decision based on a prior investment made, although that can mean more expenses than gains. It is seen among hiring managers, too, when they refuse to correct a hiring mistake.

“We have spent a lot of time and money on this candidate for evaluations, background checks, interviews, hotel and airfare for attending interviews, and other recruiting expenses. Make him an offer. We can’t do this again and again!”

“The candidate coming for an interview today has to lead a fundraising project last year. She has good leadership skills.” Here we are assuming the candidate’s skill based on a piece of information, which is a partial representation of the candidate.

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One competent go-getter is worth One Hundred incompetent do-nothings.

-Kailin Gow, Author of 'On Hiring a Winning Team'

So, what creates hiring bias?

There could be many reasons for hiring mistakes — some are conscious discriminations, but most are unconscious biases.

According to similarity-attraction hypotheses, we are attracted to people who we find similar to us. And this is not unnatural. Human beings have evolved this way to like and trust people who act and look like themselves. The trait persists even today. Thus, we feel attracted to people who share the same religion, gender, nationality, political views, similar lifestyle, etc. That’s also because most people are satisfied with their personalities, and hence they get attracted to people who share similar qualities.

For example, many hiring managers tend to recruit candidates who they think would be a better fit for the organizational culture or are attracted to candidates like them or most team members. Even worse, many hiring managers tend to benchmark the qualities they want to see in their next candidate, thus allowing room for biases to creep in.

2. The second type of discrimination occurs because we tend to fall for stereotypes. This can be conscious or unconscious bias. It is not unlikely to see candidates getting discriminated against based on their cultural differences. For example, hiring managers often fall to recruit and hire candidates who are young, extrovert, and energetic. You may even come across job advertisements that say “looking for young and energetic candidates.” And there you go. Without even realizing you are biased towards young candidates.

3. Are you picking the most experienced candidates? Often hiring managers tend to choose more experienced candidates who need little or no training. Although there is no harm in it, you overlook potential candidates who might not have the necessary experience but maybe a better fit for the job. With some training, they can even outperform experienced candidates. This happens partly when hiring is reactive. You are in a hurry to fill up a vacant position and do not want to invest time training a less experienced candidate. But when your hiring is proactive, you train your candidates and make them future-ready. So, you don’t end up filling the open position in haste but have enough time to pick the right candidate.

4. And it doesn’t end there. Hiring biases are not just done by humans but by machines too. With the growing popularity of technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence, it is no secret that recruiters often turn to such computer programs to sort resumes. While many programs remove the demographic data or names of candidates, such learning algorithms are trained to pick up candidates as they are trained to do. Thus, a new type of recruitment bias has crept in hidden under these data sets.

Should I worry about hiring bias?

As a young company, you’re tempted to follow the industry protocol for hiring candidates. But is biasness taking over your hiring decisions? If yes, do you need to worry and do something about it? Well, yes. Remember,

Hiring bias = Wrong hire

Hiring bias can lead to too many wrong hires, which can impact the company’s bottom line in the long run. Let’s take a deep dive and understand what wrong hires can lead to

Hiring Biases can lead to

Early employee turnover

If you’re noticing too many early employee turnover rates, it is time to check if your hiring process is right. Whether employees are leaving on their own or you’re forced to ask them to leave, employee turnover means a complete waste of money and time. Bias hiring can lead to hiring the wrong employees who may be a misfit for the organization. High employee turnover means you need to revisit and check any biases in your hiring process.

Prevent diversity in the workforce

McKinsey published a report called Diversity Matters, which looked across 366 companies in different US, UK, Canada, and Latin American industries. Their findings stated that companies with racial and ethnic diversity were 35 percent more likely to have financial returns over the national industry median. Their results also clearly showed that companies with gender diversity were 15 percent more likely to have financial returns over the national industry median. Bias stops from having a diverse workforce. On the other hand, a diverse workforce allows you to bring different perspectives and fresh approaches to the table.

Potential legal consequences

Biased interview questions and hiring decisions based on biases can expose your business to expensive lawsuits.

Top talents refrain from applying

If you have already earned the reputation for biased hiring, you will probably discourage top talents from applying for any future jobs.

Loss of reputation

Eventually, you lose your reputation not just in the job market but to your prospective clients too.

What can you do to avoid hiring bias?

Good news! Hiring biases can be avoided if you’re mindful of it. Let’s take a deep dive into your existing recruitment process to understand how you can remove the scope of hiring biases.

Begin with awareness training among hiring managers and recruiters. Many times, they are not aware of their biases and make hiring mistakes unconsciously. Once they are aware of their personal biases, they are better prepared to tackle the situation. Recruit candidates based on skill tests. Skill tests are a direct approach to shortlist candidates purely based on their skill sets. Instead of leaving the hiring decision to a single person, involve multiple people in the recruitment process. Doing so will eliminate the chances of hiring mistakes. Create a standardized set of questions to remain fair to all the candidates during the interview process.

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Hiring should always be part of your long-term strategy, not a quick fix to an immediate problem.

- Steven J. Bowen, Author of Total Value Optimization: Transforming Your Global Supply Chain Into a Competitive Weapon

Remember, recruitment biases are common. Recruitment biases always lead to poor decisions and poor hiring which can be costly to the organization. However, the good news is you can refrain from hiring biases and do fair hiring. Hiring biases can be easily avoided when you carefully look at your hiring process, identify the problem areas, and work towards rectifying it. Having a supportive people culture is the first step towards removing biased hiring. Want to know more about it? We will talk about it in detail in our next article.

The post Hiring Bias: A dangerous trap In The Hiring Process appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Recruitment Strategy: How to hire the Best Candidate

DU Desk — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 21:11:02 +0000

The very nature of hiring and recruitment has changed over the years. In the past, people used to approach companies and seek out job openings. Nowadays, businesses are the ones doing the hunting as they search for the right candidate to fill the role. You need to understand that it is not just the company giving employees a chance to learn and grow their careers. They are also giving your business something invaluable – a much-needed skill set and labour.

How Do You Define Recruitment?

It is the process of identifying a specific role in the organisation and using a set of techniques to identify, attract and select skilled individuals to fill that job role. Every organisation has a unique hiring process that can vary in style as well as size depending on the scale of the company. A larger company may have an entire recruitment team at its disposal to get the job done, whereas a smaller business might have just one person working as a recruiter.

In some instances, organisations might also outsource the responsibility to external recruiting agencies. Whatever the path you might choose for your business, keep in mind that recruiting typically goes hand-in-hand with the Human Resources (HR) department.

The Role Of Human Resources Management (HRM) In Recruitment

The role of the HR department in the recruiting process amounts to the handling of interviews, placements and selection of candidates. What that basically means is, the HR places a lot of importance on employees and sees them as the company’s most valuable asset. Quite often the HR team will work in tandem with the top management to decide on hiring policies and the type of work culture that will be given to new employees.

The HR acts as a mediator and tries to find a middle ground that will suit the company while also benefiting the employees to give them an ideal work environment.

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A well-organised HR department will really streamline the recruiting and hiring process, so make sure to give that priority when starting out.

When Is The Right Time To Hire?

Recruitment can be a tricky thing. If you take on the hiring process too early then you might not have the funding to pay them a fair wage or it can leave your coffers stretched. On the other hand, if you hire too late your team could fall behind and be overburdened with work. It is a tight-rope-walk activity and you have to find the right balance. Here are some signs that it is time to hire:

- - You have the funds to take on a new employee.
  - The existing staff is falling behind on responsibilities despite working long hours.
  - Your team is lacking a person with a set of specific skills to get a certain job done and it is holding up the line of work.
  - You are forced to outsource more and more of your internal tasks.
  - The company is forecasted for rapid growth in the near future and you will most likely have additional positions that need to be filled.

In the case of a start-up, you will be constantly juggling money, time and a large workload, so hiring will have to be a completely instinctual thing at this point. Since all those factors are so rapidly changing during the early stages of the business, you need to use your best judgement in combination with the above-mentioned factors to see if now is the right time for a hire.

Even if you decide to hire later down the road, it always helps to have a Recruitment strategy in place – do it weeks or even months in advance so when the time comes, you maximise your efforts.

Crafting A Solid Job Description

A lot of new companies will try very hard to stand out from the crowd, especially on those job-seeking platforms like LinkedIn. The reason being, there are so many brands, businesses and corporations with similar job descriptions that sound fancy and are sure to attract a lot of candidates for the position.

There is a need to stand out and make your company known. To overcome this hurdle, avoid similar-sounding job descriptions. Since there are so many out there, at a certain point they all start to sound the same and the candidates see it too. Give job seekers something fresh and exciting. There are three main things to include in any job description:

About the company

Sell the brand and the company to candidates. What you do, who you are, the values and mission you have in place. This is where you need to stand out most in the vast ocean of companies trying to recruit. Make it something fresh and interesting. Make a point of emphasising the organisational culture – it will be your identity that helps the business to stand out.

For example, a company that describes its organisational culture as a vibrant and easy-going environment with a fast-paced workflow and with plenty of opportunities for individual growth, is one that candidates will definitely consider.

The job

Rather than listing out a daunting number of pointers on what the candidates will have to do daily, list out the expected output from them. You may also want to include the key skills required, the level of experience the company is looking for and keep it open-ended. Do not state things as if they are set in stone, rather list them as ‘desirable’ to show that even if they do not have those skills, they are still welcome to apply. Throw a wide net and you will be surprised at the level of talent you attract.

Additionally, focus on the type of mindset and work ethic you expect from new employees. This helps set the tone of the work environment.

Benefits and compensation

Start-ups may not be able to pay employees the industry standard from the outset unless they have a tremendous amount of funding. If that is the case, you need to be very clear about that. Even if you do not want to advertise the exact number, candidates will appreciate it if you at least give them a range to work with.

When it comes to benefits, it can be a relatively inexpensive way of showing candidates that the organisation cares about their well-being and that steps have been taken to ensure fun and growth-filled workspace. As they say, “It is the thought that counts.”

Types Of Recruitment

Internal

This type of recruiting fills any openings in the company with the existing pool of talent from within the business. Employees who perform well or want to make a lateral transition and have the skills to do so are great candidates for this.

Retained

Essentially an organisation pays a fee in advance to a recruiting firm and keeps them on retainer till they find a suitable candidate to fill the position. It is also an agreement that the organisation will work exclusively with that firm for that duration of time.

Contingency

This is the same principle as the retained recruiting but in this case, the external recruiting firm is only paid the fees once a suitable candidate is found. In other words, the payment is contingent on the firm’s results.

Staffing

Staffing recruitment focuses on short-term and temporary jobs that are given to candidates on a need-by-need basis. The staffing agency matches up candidates with open positions across various companies and assigns them to whichever one suits best. It works similar to a recruitment firm – the only difference is the duration of work.

Outplacement

When an employee is terminated from an existing position or they wish to transition to a new job, they engage with outplacement services that help them with the job search, resume writing and getting a letter of recommendation and so on. Essentially, it arms them with the resources they need to find a new job.

Reverse

Instead of having candidates apply to companies for a job, this method helps companies apply to the candidate. Usually, it is carried out on a hosting platform and companies are screened and positioned in such a way that it is really easy for candidates to find the right posting. A good example of this is when companies message you on LinkedIn to see if you are open to joining them.

How To Go About The Hiring Process

Avoid phantom job postings

Many times, companies will put up an advertisement for a job opening on their websites or third-party job sites. Once a candidate clicks on that and applies, they spend anywhere from a few days to a few weeks waiting for a response, only to find out it was already filled. Companies usually do this to collect a pool of resumes for future hires but this just leads to a lot of frustrated candidates and a poor reputation for the business.

Set realistic requirements

Everyone wants an all-rounder who can do everything. The reality is most candidates will be skilled in one section and maybe not so much in another. Set requirements that are attainable and narrow so that the quality of skills is present over the quantity. A compact list of requirements also encourages more candidates to apply as it seems less daunting.

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Keep in mind that above all else, potential applicants want to know as much about the job as possible, so give them all the details upfront. It saves everyone a lot of time.

Prioritise who you approach

Companies spend a lot of time reaching out to individual candidates who have not even applied to a job, based purely on the resume. While this can be beneficial sometimes, this road often leads to wasted efforts. Instead, refocus efforts on the employees you have within the company. Internal candidates have a working knowledge of the organisation and have most likely already undergone lateral growth for a variety of positions. Access this pool of candidates before you start reaching out to find fresh faces.

Use referrals cautiously

While referrals can provide some truly talented individuals it is not always the case. The issue with relying too heavily on referrals is that you have no prior knowledge of that person’s work style or quality. Having said that, referrals are worth considering in the hiring process. You need to have multiple channels to access candidates if you want to fill that position fast. But, do not depend on them blindly.

Make use of social media

Yes, primarily you need to rely on job sites to connect the employer with the candidate but why limit yourself? Get on social media and make the most of it. Social media platforms offer a variety of different options and even have special business accounts that provide analytical data on who sees your posts, when, how often and from where.

You get all the data and a direct line of dialogue with the candidates. If you have the time put in some effort into developing the business’s social channels – you will see amazing results in no time. Companies with an active presence on social media who also readily engage with candidates breed an air of modernity. It shows the general public that you are willing to embrace change and try new things.

Go check out our article on ‘onboarding’ to learn more about hiring and recruitment fits into the bigger picture of getting new employees integrated into the company.

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