Talent crunch is often quoted as a serious problem by companies across different industry sectors. The changing socio-economic, infrastructure and policy environment in India has facilitated India Inc. to expand its footprints rapidly in various parts of the country, including small districts and towns. At the same time, however, there is an acute shortage of talent that is impacting businesses. On the other hand, growing aspirations of job seekers and their inability to fit into the job criteria set by the employers is a growing worry for the candidates looking for employment opportunities.
In such a scenario, the absence of RPO Solutions providers that can work to bring these two ends together to meet mutual needs of both the candidate and the employer, is very disturbing. There is presence of both organized, unorganized, niche and international players operating in the placement domain in India, but neither are they able to meet the needs of job providers, nor are they able to help the candidates. On top of it, the inability to provide desired results every time, leads to a raised hiring cost and time effort, coupled with lower productivity and higher attrition rates in the organization, leading to dissatisfaction and frustration among the job seekers.
he government in the past, has tried to find a solution to this problem by introducing employment exchanges aimed at providing assistance in helping the candidates find employment. These exchanges were not only expected to provide information to employers and job-seekers, but were also to act as counseling and training centers for the latter, readying them for the demands of the workplace. Unfortunately, these employment exchanges have not met the above set expectations, and have thus have become redundant in today’s dynamic environment and have failed in providing adequate jobs to the population.
Referring to the Employment Exchanges Statistics Report of 2012, the percentage of placement to submission is not even 10% for about 950+ employment exchanges across the states and union territories in India. With over 60 lac registrations happening across India and more and more job seekers getting added each year, the condition looks really grave, causing a clear blockage in the talent supply chain. This calls for a transformation of the engine to deliver better results by removing these blockages by re-engineering this scenario, which seems to be the only alternative in the present situation.
Having observed the evolving dynamism of the needs and requirements at both the employer and the candidate’s end, and with the maturing job market in India, there is an urgent need of a continuous evolution and monitoring of the talent management system. The current working model of the employment exchange or any other job platform that focuses on just the people who are registered, should be transformed into a true talent matchmaking engine by intelligent intervention of people, process and technology. It is time to create a talent stock exchange, which will help both the job aspirants and the employers, by matching demand with supply.
The idea of a talent stock exchange will see all stakeholders of the job landscape – the corporates, the candidates, the government and the recruiters (internal or external), coming together under a platform for the first time to create an efficient system in matching the right candidate with the right skill sets. This will solve the major problem of skilling and talent matchmaking faced by companies. This system would use next-gen methods like social recruiting, video interviews, online assessments etc. to deliver the best results by process and cost efficiency, along with delivering exceptional experience to the candidates.
Talent stock exchanges can be scaled up and customized as per requirements and can help in matching job requirements with the aspirations of the potential candidate, effectively resulting in increased retention and productivity, instead of just matching a person against a job description.
The first step is the creation of a database of available jobs in various industries or companies at different locations with specific requirements and selection parameters. The talent available can then be mapped against these parameters. The correct mapping is very important to reduce the time taken to search the right candidate and if required, also help in adjusting the selection parameters. With jobs as its center, the talent stock exchange will facilitate the candidate in completely understanding what is being expected from him / her, the choice of the location, and how the job will fit into the candidate’s career planning.
The present government’s focus on transforming employment exchanges into career centers brings a ray of hope that the transformation of employment exchange into talent exchanges is not far off.