Joseph has just stepped out of his CMD’s booth by submitting his letter of resignation from the position of Vice President of Human Resources within six months of joining his duties. It was an extremely difficult decision that he had to make when analyzing the companies’ hiring philosophy. In fact, CMD, who also happened to be his immediate boss, had a long discussion on the subject. But José was not entirely convinced.
It was also a difficult decision for Joseph because he comes from a background where he has spent over fifteen years at some of the best technology companies in the world in various international assignments as well as having a master’s degree from one of the best universities in the USA. According to Joseph, the company is in the next-generation technology business and established its presence in the market very recently. The business model is seen as fantastic and has huge potential. Therefore, the need of the hour is to expand the business of companies very quickly by building a strong team of young achievers. Furthermore, the competition in the market will be very stiff as the company is directly competing with some of the top MNC players known for their international best practices. Therefore, taking market share away from the already well-established MNC Players will not be an easy task. This needs individuals who can be considered only as the “best and gamechangers” in the market. Joseph has already done his homework extensively and identified many of those people for top, senior, and many other key positions that can drive massive enterprise initiative.
However, many of those identified individuals turn out to be outstanding candidates. This turned out to be the bone of contention. According to the CMD of the company, cost control is one of the top priorities of the company and therefore in this process you have to make sure that the hiring cost is very much under control and in this process in In the event that the company invites a candidate from the external station, the company has to bear the cost of travel expenses (it can be airfare), in addition to relocation expenses that can become very expensive matters. It is in this context that the company should prefer and hire a local candidate to save costs in the short term.
But Joseph also has a valid point. He argues yes, definitely. In case he is in a position to get a suitable local candidate who has very good potential, why not? But here Joseph discovers that even though his boss doesn’t say it very clearly, he also doesn’t allow any top candidate to be shortlisted for the purpose of an interview or even if a top candidate is shortlisted on the basis of merit, at the moment it seems that the candidate is an outstation one, immediately he or she is put on hold for an indefinite period. Therefore, rather than merit, it is location that is becoming the main decision criterion for shortlisted profiles, and in this process, Joseph firmly believes that merit is drastically compromised, at least that is what it seemed to him in the case of the latest high-level hires made under his command. surveillance. Therefore, he has definitely done his job, but he firmly believes that he could not do justice with his role.
According to Joseph, for a senior and critical position, we need to make sure that people are extremely talented and only outstanding performers because these are the people who ultimately drive the toughest market competition, as well as becoming a role model, which is very important to everyone. the organization’s employees. The entire organization must be able to see them as the role model. Therefore, merit must have the sole priority in the shortlisting and selection of key and critical positions. Even a fraction of a difference in merit factor could make a big difference in the operational level performance of the entire organization in the market over its closest competitors, as these individuals frequently make strategic level decisions. In a highly competitive market, a single such decision could turn out to be the decisive decision for the entire business. Ironically, due to the nature of the specialist role, these people may not be available locally. Therefore, saving a few lakhs of rupees in the short term could prove to be very costly for the company in the long run because in the end, the company might be forced to foster mediocracy for the top and critical position. At least that’s what appeared to him in his current assignment. And if that happens, the entire organization will eventually suffer from mediocracy syndrome and that type of organization will not be able to face tough competition in the market. However, he also believes that non-senior and critical positions can definitely be filled only in the local market.
Danny, another A-list professional who spent more than fifteen years at some of the world’s best multinational companies and is currently expanding his own headhunting business, is of the same mind. He says that every day he comes across some very good profiles of outstanding candidates. But his client is simply not willing to accept any of those profiles. Due to various factors such as cost pressure, time pressure due to project deadline, etc., the client always insists on looking for local candidates, even for high-level and critical positions.
According to him, high-level recruitment is a time-consuming process, and in today’s highly competitive market, many line managers are not prepared to spend enough time on various recruitment activities, such as pre-screening, interviews with candidates, information to potential candidates, etc. Even many interviews are carried out very haphazardly and abruptly, leading to a total compromise of the merit factor that does not become visible in the short term, but in the long term the organization becomes a typical mediocratic and therefore Therefore, it fails to compete in the highly competitive market.
In conclusion, recruitment for senior and critical positions should be conducted solely on the basis of merit and only the best should go through the final selection process. Therefore, any amount of firefighting focus could be very costly in the long run for the entire organization. Also, saving hiring costs in the short term might not divide the organization in the long term. The ideal strategy might be to conduct initial screening on merit alone, followed by a preliminary interview via phone or video conference process for outside station candidates. Should some off-station candidate turn out to be the best, don’t turn him down just because he’s not the local candidate, because at the end of the day it could turn out that he’s changing the entire course of the company’s business and leading to a completely different height. .