For tech companies that are looking to hire talent, the story is more or less the same everywhere. These companies are often caught between the rapid rate of technological innovation and the skills gap. In countries like India, it is a candidate-driven market and searching for talent to fill the specific niches can become an uphill task.
Sample the following challenges:
- It is not unusual for firms to become inundated with resumes. Sometimes, the experience and expertise on the resumes are a far cry from what they are capable of doing.
- Some firms search specifically for candidates with prior work experience and expertise in a skill. However, it is difficult to find specialized talent for some technologies. Those candidates that are available could well be beyond the available budgets.
- Sometimes, the candidates match all the requirements of the job description. Yet, they may lack other skills that would make them a key team player. Or they may not be a cultural fit.
- Hiring employees is just one side of the coin for tech firms. They also need to train them, retain talent, and manage them.
To address the recruitment challenge and to overcome many of the issues like here, we wanted to share our experience of recruiting freshers. That may offer a possible solution for technology companies like us.
Here are Some Benefits of Hiring Freshers:
- Freshers from some of the best colleges and institutes often have a bird’s eye view of some of the latest technologies because of the projects, workshops, and internships they would have been exposed to. This could mean that they may be better at grasping new technologies or software.
- Another benefit of hiring freshers is that the time taken to recruit them is relatively less. Firms can take the campus placement route to hire them directly after their studies /while they are still studying or working on a project.
- Freshers bring new and innovative ideas to the table. Even though they are rookies, some of them can provide fresh perspectives to various teams and clients. Some of them may even solve issues and bring forth solutions based on that different way of looking at things.
- Freshers can be hired on comparatively lower salaries as opposed to experienced candidates.
- It is often easier to train freshers as they tend to be enthusiastic, curious, and eager to learn. Even if the assignments are small and need their attention, they will be able to do them with full fervor.
- Fresh graduates often have more “skin in the game.” They are more passionate and committed because they are looking to create a strong foundation for their career and growth.
- Gen Z is the “fresher generation,” which is entering the workforce at present. This demographic had access to mobile devices right from an early age. This makes them more tech-savvy than any other generation.
Codifyd – Providing a Level Playing Field to Freshers
At Codifyd, we have generally focused on hiring experienced people. Till recently, that is. We believe that ours is a high-performance work environment. We took a conscious decision to nurture young talent and shape them to fit into that company ethos. While we handpicked the freshers based on their attitude and aptitude, we accepted that we would have to take some additional steps to hone their talent and equip them to perform.
- We understood the importance of making the recruits understand the company culture. For this purpose, onboarding became critical. We ran them through them the core values of our business, the area we operated in, our long and short-term goals, and so on. This was a key phase, and we expended a substantial amount of energy on it.
- We had to train the freshers on the technologies that we work with. This is a complex space. We partner with companies like Stibo that are involved and have technical products to implement. The Product Information Management and Master Data Management solutions we work with are not easy to understand. To train the freshers, we created detailed online courses for them to access and work with on their own. The courses were divided into phases. The initial phases were intended to serve as overviews, and there were detailed dive-downs that the freshers got into based on their projected job roles. By the time we wrap up this tailored training, the freshers are ready to work on various test projects.
- Applying the principles, they learned in the context of real projects helped them get up to speed quickly.
- Obviously, we provided all the necessary resources to the freshers as additional support. This included assigning a mentor who could teach them the ropes and review the tasks as they gradually start working on various projects.
- We continually revise and update the training plan. It is designed meticulously to find and fix knowledge gaps that exist by the time the freshers finish the training.
- We also asked for feedback from the freshers to understand how we could improve the training material, resources, and course designs.
Making Every Penny Count
Hiring freshers comes with its own price tag. Employee training programs take more time and effort. But they are worth the investment. They help ensure that the freshers who join get to enhance their technical abilities and also boost their soft skills.
While this is still a work-in-progress, the future seems promising. It seems that hiring freshers can help deliver a positive impact on the hiring efforts of a technology organization. Even a high-performance technology organization like Codifyd.