Sheela, a bright MBA student, landed up with 2 offers - one with a role of her choice in a Luxury Retail company and the other with an IT giant but it did not cater to what she was aspiring for. After battling with herself and her close friends, she finally decided to take up the Luxury Retail offer. For 3 years, she strove to the pinnacle of success in the company and achieved laurels. And as it happens in the life of every professional, when they are at the top, they do have a tendency to look back at the traversed path and at the horizon and then take a call. To camp there and expand or leave the status quo and challenge the unknown. She decided to do the latter.
She worked out her resume, mentioned all her achievements, dotted the i's, crossed her t's and floated it in the most popular job portals. A few weeks went by without any calls and she decided that waiting for it won't be enough. She started browsing job opportunities and started applying to the ones which she wanted to pursue. When that didn't work, she tried applying for the positions which asked for the kind of experience and achievements she had.
Somehow, nothing worked! A year had passed by. The next opportunity she got her hands on, she tracked down and contacted the recruiter concerned. She just wanted to know her chances in getting shortlisted (in other words - "WTF was wrong with my profile?"). The revert from the recruiter actually bemused her - "Sorry ma'am, as great as your resume seems to be you do not belong to the same industry. The client is very specific about hiring someone from the same industry".
An award winning marketeer Sheela sat down wondering - "So that's the reason I haven't been considered for selection processes all these days. Because I am not from the same industry??? What kind of a fucked up reason is that? When we are giving our creatives to ad agencies, we knew such work was rarely done around here and we took chances with people who were NOT FROM THE SAME INDUSTRY!!! Does that mean I can never change the industry I am working in currently??? Ever????"
Sheela is not alone. Several MBA grads who are not from IIMs or other premier B-schools mostly face this problem on a regular basis when they wish to change the industry they wish to work in. Several questions cloud their selection process. And for what reason. Has the HR Department forgotten to take risks?
There are many ways hiring within the same industry or same fabric of business can be challenged:
- You are avoiding change. The greatest danger a business can harbour is the risk of not trying to innovate or take risks!
- When a person graduates from an educational program, unless they have super-specialized to the industry type, it means they have the necessary educational qualifications to apply for a position in the line of business their education caters to not their experience!
- People in the same fabric of business have a preset way of work. It impedes an opportunity for somebody to think out of the box. Because frankly, hiring has happened within the box!
- While shortlisting, you are missing out on a significant size of the eligible talent pool.
- Your recruitment process comes under question as it needs assistance of a delimiting parameter to find better recruits
- The most significant traits that need to be checked are: willingness to perform the job and culture orientation. Both of which cannot be judged appropriately if the population has been stratified as per current hiring standards.
Let us not forget the basic fact that all such industries, lines of businesses who are implementing these baseless recruitment standards actually started off hiring from totally diverse business lines.
Surprised?!!
I invite all recruiters to do a basic search of all CEOs, department heads or people of importance in various business fields across the world. You would find at least 80% of them have either not have a relevant degree or haven't started working in the same field of work let alone in the same line of business.
The reason they have made it to the top or a position inviting envy is because there was somebody at some point of time in the HR or selection team of some Organization who was crazed enough to give them a chance. Someone was crazed enough to think beyond restrictions of mere educational degrees and sectoral experience.
Has that craze, that will to risk it eluded the HR of today?
