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Selection Process for a Job

1.1 Get Ready for the Job Search Process

It is that time of your life when you are about to enter your final year of college. After much debating and discussion with friends and family, you have decided to take up a job after graduation rather than go for higher studies or pursue other options. You see that many of your classmates, too, have chosen to go for jobs and for some, the decision to look for a job is forced on them by their family circumstances and economic necessity. Whatever may be the case, you will find that almost your entire class is suddenly focused on finding a job and moving on in life. Word is already around about how so and so company is going to arrive on campus and recruit students by the hundreds and how someone has already received a mega offer from a multinational corporation (MNC). The air is filled with anticipation, excitement and nail-biting anxiety.

You spring into action right away—except that you do not know where to begin or how exactly to go about looking for a job. You know that you will have to prepare a résumé and circulate it around. You register with your campus placement office and stay on top of all placement-related news, rumours and action. You follow the herd and do what the other students do, such as polishing your English, brushing up on your general knowledge and even buying a new set of clothes to bolster your image. You realize very soon that job hunting can be very challenging, much more than anything you have ever done in college. Clearly, you can do with some help to navigate through the process of looking for a job.

Fig. 1.1 Steps in the recruitment process

This chapter intends to provide that help and hopes to walk you through the job search process, giving you pointers on how to position yourself to land a good job. As illustrated in Figure 1.1, we start off with what kind of homework you need to do before you begin your job hunt. This homework begins with an objective self-assessment to identify the best industries or companies where you could be successful. Next, we explain the role typically played by your college placement center in your job search. And finally, we outline the steps followed by the organizations themselves in their recruitment process, so that you get an insight into what they are looking for and prepare accordingly. Because the job search and recruitment process is elaborate, this chapter acts as a preview to the details in the next few chapters.

Assess yourself: Perhaps, all through your college days, you were so tied up with assignments, tests and examinations that you never got the time to introspect and identify your strengths, weaknesses, likes, career ambitions, and perceived stumbling blocks in your ambitions and dreams. Now is the time to subject yourself to a thorough, unbiased and objective self-analysis.

One of the effective ways to do that is called a SWOT analysis, where SWOT stands for Strength-Weakness-Opportunities-Threats. This theory was first propagated by Albert Humphrey at SRI International in the 1960s and was used as a basis for a 35-year career as an independent management consultant dba Business Planning and Development¹.

Fig. 1.2 SWOT analysis

During SWOT analysis, you take a hard look at yourself (Strengths and Weaknesses) and the environment around you (Opportunities and Threats). Thus, the strengths and weaknesses are internally focused while the opportunities and threats are externally focused. This should hopefully streamline your job search and help you find the best job to match your skills, personality and circumstances rather than randomly shooting your résumés in air.

So, how do you do a SWOT analysis? You have to ask yourself some specific questions. There are a number of resources on the internet to help you do a SWOT. We have summarized here and in Figure 1.2 the essential aspects:

• Start by focusing on your strengths. If you do not have any prior work experience, you can start looking at subjects that you feel are your strong points. You can also look at other skills like co-curricular activities, sports, internships, etc.
• Also, be brutally frank with yourself while analyzing your weaknesses. This is likely to be tougher than focusing on your strengths.
• The strengths and weaknesses can help you identify potential opportunities and also guard yourself against potential threats—the external and environmental factors.

Sometimes, your perception of your strengths and weaknesses can be very different from the way others see you. There are two tools available to reconcile these differences:

• You can take psychometric tests which enable you to assess your personality. One of them is highly popular, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)². This classifies people into sixteen ‘psychological types’. There is a substantial amount of research material available that identify individual’s preferences across four ‘dichotomies’. This test can also give pointers to what kind of jobs will be suitable for you.
• You can infer perceptions from people you know well. There is an instrument called Johari Window³, as shown in Figure 1.3, which helps you do this. In this, you as well as your close friends are given a series of 59 adjectives that characterize you. These are plotted along four quadrants which enable you to identify any differences between your perception of yourself and others’ perception of you.

Identify the best industries / lines suitable for you: Before you blast the internet with your résumé, here are some of the questions you should ask yourself: Do you want to stay in the ‘core industries’ of your undergraduate branch/department? Or would you take up any job broadly related to what you did in college? Do you intend to use your degree to land an IT or a BPO job in a large company? Or in this age of scarce jobs and heavy competition, are you open to ‘any’ job?

Today the lines of separation between industries are somewhat blurred, thanks to the convergence of several technologies. This means that if you are a chemical engineer, you do not have to limit your job search to just within the chemical industry because there can be chemical engineering-oriented jobs in other sectors as well. There may also be jobs in other industries, say the petroleum industry, which primarily looks for petroleum engineers but may be willing to recruit chemical engineers and train them in petroleum engineering. The point is, although you are majoring in one discipline, your ‘job market’ so to speak is far wider than you may think and you are employable and trainable in far more industries than you can imagine. All this can leave you extremely confused as to the line you would like to work in. The SWOT and psychometric tests mentioned in the previous section should hopefully give you a fair idea about which line would work out best for you.

Fig. 1.3 Johari window

In addition to SWOT analysis discussed above, trust your instincts too! It is important not to choose a particular line or industry (especially if your heart is not in it) simply because ‘‘everybody is going for it’’ and it is the fad of the season or because it is the most remunerative. For example, English teachers to engineering graduates flock to BPO jobs. While this may result in monetary benefits, are you sure you want to move away from the core skills you learnt in college? It is important to follow your passions when choosing your line.

Know the role of the placement center of your college: Most colleges have dedicated placement centres or placement cells, which are staffed by student volunteers as well as dedicated and experienced staff. Some of the functions they perform include:

• Liaising with hiring companies and convincing them to visit the campus.
• Gathering students’ information and preferences for companies to work for.
• Providing logistics support for visiting companies.
• Assisting companies in shortlisting eligible candidates by grades and projects.
• Communicating to the students the details of visiting companies, results of the selection process, etc.

Sometimes, the placement cell may have its own policies for shortlisting and allowing students to attend certain interviews. They themselves may stipulate some minimum percentage or insist that you cannot attend another interview if you already have a job offer. Make sure you are aware of all these policies ahead of time so that you are not in for any surprise or shock. Most colleges do not take too kindly to students abusing their placement privilege and may mete out strong punishment in such cases.

As a job aspirant, you should constantly keep in touch with the placement office and be aware of the companies visiting your campus. Sometimes, these visits happen all of a sudden and may not give you enough time for formal communication. It is up to you to keep your eyes and ears open and keep yourself informed.

Do some research on companies you would prefer: Within an industry segment, there are several companies and they differ on various aspects. Look at the websites of these companies; understand their business lines, career opportunities, financial details and customer profiles. You can ask your seniors—if any of them are working or have worked in those companies—for feedback about the size, the work environment, company stability, growth opportunities and, of course, financial rewards. Look for consistency of record and consistency of information before you zero in on the companies you want to try. Small companies and startups may give more excitement and informality but may not have as much financial benefits or brand recognition. On the other hand, a fresher may feel like a small fish in an ocean in a large organization. Decide what your preference is.

As an extension of the above point, it is also important to decide which companies you do not want to try. The checklist given below in Snapshot 1.1 can act as a guide for you to select possible companies you want to try. Pursue the ‘good companies’ on your list for possible openings.

Do consider personal factors in addition to professional factors: A good paycheck or benefits and plenty of opportunities for career growth can be overriding criteria for choosing a particular job over others. In addition to these, consider other factors too. Does the job involve travel? Are you fine with travel? Does the location suit your health and personal preference? What about your family? Do not jump into a company just because they, for example, ‘do Java programming’.

If you have a ‘dream job’, pin it down: A number of academic institutions allow you to designate a ‘dream job’. The normal policy is that you are barred from appearing for any other interviews once you get one job. But, you are allowed to appear for your ‘dream job’ interview even if you already have another offer. Intimating this formally to the placement cell will enable you to try for other jobs without the fear of jeopardizing your chance of appearing for your dream job selection.

Check past history in your campus: You may have shortlisted a few companies that are your preferred choice. Unfortunately, some of these companies may not come to your campus to recruit. So, as college recruitment goes, your choice is limited to the few that choose to visit your college. (Usually, companies that visit your campus will be large and reputable, and hence, you need not have any regrets).

Make a list of companies who have visited your college over the past several years. This will help you to be realistic about which companies come to your campus and also assess your chances of getting into a particular company. For example, you can ascertain any minimum grade or percentage they look for or any specialization they want. If you know what company you want to join and if you start reasonably early, perhaps you can plan ahead and meet the preconditions for selection (as shown in Table 1.1).

Prepare for the recruitment: Preparation is the key to performance. To grab a lucrative job opportunity, you need to arrange everything meticulously. We have suggested some steps to help you prepare for the recruitment process and come out with flying colours.

Table 1.1 Campus placement checklist

Prepare a clean, honest and compelling résumé: Some colleges have their own formats for résumés. Do follow the college standards. In addition, prepare a compelling résumé using the suggestions listed in Chapter 2. Some creativity can enable you to highlight your ‘unique selling propositions’ (or USP as it is commonly called to refer to your unique strengths) better than a vanilla format from a college. Remember that a résumé is used as the first step to filter out candidates. Hence, putting a focus on a well prepared résumé is well worth the effort.

Have all the supporting documents ready: Make sure you assemble all your mark sheets (right from your tenth standard in most cases), degree certificates, proficiency certificates, testimonials and so on and prepare extra copies and keep them handy. It is also a good idea to keep scanned copies of these documents in your mail folder or internet storage space so that you can email them when needed in a hurry.

Do not always try for every company that comes to your campus: Sometimes, you may be tempted to ‘have a job in the bag’ as early as possible. While this may give you short-term gratification, it may not turn out to be the most intelligent decision. You would want to take a broader view and look at your long-term career (using the checklist above) when you choose the companies you want to try. Besides, choosing the first company (and getting selected) may affect your ‘dream job’.

Understand the typical steps in the recruitment process: Most organizations go through a multi-round selection (rather elimination) process to narrow down and identify the most appropriate candidates to fill their recruitment needs. We will take a brief look at this long-drawn-out process in this section, leaving the details for subsequent chapters. We will look especially at the different screens or filters that recruiters use to eliminate unsuitable candidates.

The first round of elimination usually occurs at the résumé level based on the information given in it about your specialization in college, your grades and whether your qualification in general meets the profile an organization is looking for regarding its job openings. Most rejections generally happen at this stage.

For example, software companies may stipulate they only want students from the Computer Science or Information Technology discipline. They may further state that they would only consider candidates who have a consistent record of 80 per cent in all their semesters in college as well as in their tenth and twelfth standards. You need to talk to your placement cell and understand such preconditions and evaluate your acceptability. As mentioned earlier, to be better among equals, make sure you prepare a compelling résumé so as not to be eliminated in the first level itself.

After clearing the first hurdle, qualified candidates usually take a written test. This may be on a specific subject or can be a general aptitude test (see Chapter 3). Aptitude tests usually cover quantitative (mathematical) techniques, logical reasoning and English skills. This is a gate wherein a large number of candidates are eliminated.

If a job emphasizes strong communication skills, there may be a group discussion (GD) next. GDs are popular instruments of evaluation for jobs in fields such as marketing, sales and management. GDs are dealt with in detail in Chapter 4.

The next (and usually the last) step is a personal interview. In some cases, there can be more than one interview—first one to evaluate your technical skills, the next one to ascertain your soft skills and so on. You may even have several rounds of technical interviews, each more difficult than (or with a different objective from) the previous one. You may also have a specific HR interview or may be called to visit the company’s facility (sometimes in another city) for a final interview (although the last one is somewhat rare for a fresh college hire). You will find tips on taking interviews in Chapter 5.

It is important to sustain the momentum through all these rounds to finally land that job. Note that not all organizations follow all the steps nor do they perform these in the same order. For example, some organizations may completely skip group discussions; some others may choose to have a technical interview first and then call the successful ones for a group discussion. Be prepared for all possible combinations and have an open mind. Regardless of the steps or order used, like a game of musical chairs, more aspirants get eliminated in the earlier stages and fewer ‘chairs’ are available in later rounds.

1.2 In Summary

Job hunting is probably one of the most nerve-wracking experiences you will have in your entire life. You have to think rationally, be organized, be proactive and, above all, be able to display and demonstrate all your special talents and impress the recruiter. Here are some of the highlights of what we saw in this chapter:

• Start with a clear understanding of where you stand with the help of a SWOT analysis and other similar tools.
• Understand your college policies about attending campus interviews in terms of ‘arrears’, grades, dream jobs, etc.
• Study the past history of which companies have visited your college and how they had recruited then.
• Research on organizations to evaluate the match between your strengths and their needs.
• Consider personal aspects like location, travel required and nature of work in making the choice.
• Keep all supporting documents including résumés, certificates and testimonials ready.
• Do not try for a company just because it is the rage of the day.
• Do not take up any job that comes up just to have a ‘safe bird in hand’. This may prevent you from trying for the ‘two in the bush’—your dream job!
• Do not be fixated on any specific assumptions about the selection process. Recruiters can change their methods and strategies at any time. Therefore, you should keep a keen eye on what is going on in your placement cell, as well as the trend in general, and make necessary changes to your approach.