New skills will define contours of employee selection

Ankkush Puri

If somebody said, they were averse to change, nature had a surprise lesson for them. What is nature’s second name is not what we dwell upon. I’d like to share the example of a leading pharma giant that is in the process of equipping its medical reps to conduct virtual meetings with doctors. Let’s just follow this thread for a few minutes. What this means is that this organisation is equipping its existing team to use technology which is over and above the job competency grid. This also means that the next time they recruit somebody for this position, the candidate will be expected to bring along the ability to demonstrate the competencies via a new medium. This, in turn, implies that the recruiters hiring these candidates must be in a position to assess the candidate on the competency grid and their comfort with the new medium. And of course, in the virtual world, the recruiter could now be hiring somebody from Gurgaon to connect with doctors in Mumbai.

Post Covid, organisations may hark back to the pre-Covid practices, but not all. There might be some new discovered practices that will assume permanence and a few not, maybe. However, in the context of hiring, a lot might change. Irrespective of how soon the economy picks up or how successful the government is in creating more jobs, the lion has tasted blood, hiring will never be the same again. A sneak peek into the trends  

1. Degree of complexity furthering dependence on technology

With virtual working and WFH trending, the geographic boundaries will vanish and every job opportunity will attract a higher number of applications. For a recruiter to be efficient and ensure the best shortlists, the role of technology in hiring will only accentuate.

 2. The resurgence of soft skills

Change is the new constant – an adage that has just come to life. How many waves of change and what frequency do we expect them, is anybody’s guess. In this realm of changes, skills like agility, resilience, unlearning, curiosity, emotional intelligence will find many and frequent takers. It will be relatively easier to train employees on hard skills but innate skills will be the new ask.

 3. The new-age recruiter

With new skills evolving sooner than the old disappearing and a new vacuum for critical soft skills, the recruiters’ competency framework will change and keep changing, compelling the new age recruiter possess the same critical soft skill sets apart from expertise and proficiency in their respective domains and the willingness to rapidly adapt to the new tech platforms. The new age recruiters will be expected to align with the strategy of the hiring organization and chalk out the most efficient and fastest hiring solution.

 4. Towards an open Talent Economy

Covid will have its impact on employees in different ways. A few driven by job security will hang on to their jobs, irrespective of satisfaction or other factors. Another set of employees to emerge will be the ones driven by insecurity of such times and would love to maximise their savings, so turn into hard negotiators as far as their remuneration is concerned.

A third category is going to be the ones who will subscribe to a new way of living – something that helps them maintain the balance between their professional and personal lives and the ones who will join the Open Talent Economy. There will be a set of organisations, who would prefer and endorse the Open Talent Economy so they reap the benefits of this need based hiring.

 5. A skill-based eco system

People have got enough time to sit back, rethink and evaluate their professional journeys. Amongst others, one thing that will appear as a common thread will be openness to learning. People will be more open to learning and willing to step out of their shells to experiment and develop alternate skills and expertise. This will also build up a foundation for upskilling and reskilling. As a country, we will only accelerate away from the Degree based selection to a completely skill based hiring. Degrees were probably serving as crutches to support a not-so-robust hiring eco system. With the new tech tools and new age recruiters, the hiring eco system will change forever.

 6. New skills on the block

The sublimation of geographic boundaries will only increase the number of transactions or add to the complexity of choosing, be it suppliers, customers, employees, etc. and the increase in work load will necessitate speed, accuracy through proliferation of technology in every sphere of work. This will be a set of skills that will lend more thrust and sheen to the function of hiring. Skill sets like AI, ML, Cyber security, data analysts, blockchain , etc will be the new hard skills on the block apart from the soft skills mentioned above.

 7. Employer branding

The challenge for employers to attract the best talent and manage to retain itis going to be defined by the degree of authenticity they demonstrate, now. How true are they to their values, is something that will be seen by employees and remembered for ages. The candidate experience at every touch point is going to play a critical role, as the choice of an employer is a right that employees will only exercise more often. As the choice for employers increases, so it does for employees, too.

 — The writer is Consultant, Talent Management and Organisational Development.

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