Degrees Versus Skills

Rajesh knows that when finding the “right” people for a job, you need to know how to measure what “right” is. He explains the kinds of questions he asks clients to find and train the best people for the job.

“First thing is, it’s always important to understand what success means for them, what would they think we have provided. We have come up with the right people, right solutions, right strategy for the problems they are trying to solve. Once you understand what success looks like for them, because it’s not always what’s written on the paper, it’s always in the people’s head. It’s important to have that conversation.

Second, it’s about their expectations around quality of talent, their expectations around timing of it, the expectations around…. These days, people want to have different assessments, people want to have different ways of looking at it. We have to stand up and convince that we are not here to provide talent to you, we are here to provide solutions. Solutions are built by talent. We are here to convince you that our talent management philosophy, from hiring, to managing, to retain them are world class for us to be able to take those challenges. While I can give a very generic spiel, if I don’t tailor it to what they are looking for, specifically, it never resonates.

So, it’s always important to understand what success is for them. What are their pressure points? What timelines are they looking for? What would they be delighted with? Then, you tailor your pitch to say, ‘all of your requirements can be met this way,’ or ‘there are certain gaps and these are our plans to work on them.'”