The case for hiring from Tier II and Tier III Colleges (Apr 01 - Apr 15, 2015)

As a part of my New Year resolution, I am gonna pen down 1 post (min 500 words) every fortnight.

Over the last half of a decade, I have worked with a lot of youngsters. The number is significantly high (in tunes of 50,000) and the experience of interacting with them has been very enriching. I have worked in the learning and development team for a couple of MNCs and I now can safely say that I have a background in analyzing behaviors especially from an organization point of view.

When I look at the competition which exists at the entry level of most of the competitive companies the first target from the recruitment team is to get the day 1 in the college when the hiring begins. Reason: Everyone wants the cream. Well, sounds logical, isn’t it?

Not really. When you look at numbers in terms of the performance of people over a period of time, you will be surprised. Now we know that the word ‘performance’ is vague and includes a lot of factors, for clarity we can simply relate it to the ROI from the organization point of view. The data suggests that the ROI from every employee who is hired from a premier institute compared to one who isn’t is not different. And if you dig a bit deeper in terms of (a) the longevity of the career of employees, and (b) the positivity he/ she carries around them it hints towards slightly more commitment from the guys coming from non-premier institutes.

There are reasons behind this ROI shift over time. People hired from top tier institutes not only cost more, they also carry an air of arrogance around them and right from the beginning of their career. They aren’t flexible working on various tasks; in and around their primary job.

Over the last decade or so the way education has made way into the second level of cities of India. A direct analogy can be seen from the cricket field. Gone are the days when half of the team used to come from metros like Mumbai which has a rich and deep cricketing history. Because of the new found exposure; players from relatively smaller cities are making way into the national scene. Similarly students from lesser known colleges can be seen to have the hunger to run shoulders with the best and the humility to carry them professionally at the workplace.

From a Human Resource point of view and from the view of learning and development, we know that if the basics like attitude are in place, there are certain types of skills which can be transferred to an individual. Most of the organizations nowadays have either incorporated an in house learning and development team or they outsource it. Whatever they do, they can’t deny the contribution of the training which has a long term impact on ROI of any organization. Once a firm has invested in a sound L&D team, it makes sense for them to look for candidates who have the right mindset as the first priority and skills can be taken care later on.

There are a number of examples in which organizations have consciously invested in getting people on board from tier – II and tier III colleges and prepare them through a robust training and development plan. Researches have shown that the ROI through such process has been significantly higher in such cases.

Whatever is being written here are the personal views of the author and are subjected to agreement or disagreement. And a request to all members, Please share your views !!