Recruitment / Human Resource Roles

The Beginning
Back at the previous company, recruitment was a very direct, face-to-face affair. Hiring managers would stand at roadshows and do their talent scouting while the executives continued on about their hunts for prospective clients.

We would approach suitable candidates directly, invite them to take a seat and share with them the perks of working for us. We had presentation slides ready, alongside with our payslips to impress the candidates with (not so much as to show off, but more of a proof to convince them that they could earn this kind of income too).

Other times, we would partake in Recruitment Drives or Career Fairs to acquire more candidates. These were often fruitful methods, as well as the method mentioned in above paragraph. Candidates these days are rather fickle-minded and sceptical, hence we needed to strike in the heat of the moment - arouse the interest, ignite the fire in them, and close the deal before they change their minds.

Of course, we did place job advertisements in various online portals as well, but that was a very slow way of recruitment as applicants were few and far in between.


The New Environment
This was a company that did  not believe in the face-to-face recruitment approach. Granted, the management here is of a more mature age group, hence their mentality is more conventional as well.

When I first joined, I wrote them a proposal of the various methods I would use to generate candidates and recruit for them - including the methods I used back at the previous company, as well  as hiring surveyors to conduct career-satisfaction surveys at central business districts.

They took my plans into consideration, but in the end decided to stick with the current way of recruitment here (which, is a dying trend, especially for our industry).

Hence, what I did daily here was to place as many ads as possible in various job portals (at least they approved all the advertising budget I asked for) and contact the applicants.

We also purchased resumes data mining rights - in which we could log in to search for, and view job applicants' profiles as well as their curriculum-vitaes (CVs). I would conduct a search to shortlist a list of candidates that fit our hiring criteria - in terms of qualifications, age group, languages spoken etc. After that, I would call them up one by one to inform them that our company had an opening, and would like to invite them down for a presentation or chitchat session.

Job Applicants' Attitude
Many of the appointments fixed did not turn up. Some of them were polite enough to inform, whereas others did not. I would reschedule some who said they "forgot about the interview" and blacklist those who could not make it or had accepted another job offer in the meanwhile.

For those who turned up, I would first let them complete a Personality Test. Then I would interview them, and share about the company and job role to them.  This would be followed by a rather impression presentation of the company's success system, and the reason why we were different from other companies in the same field.

Once the candidate finished listening to my presentation and I addressed their queries, I would pass them on to one of the directors to undergo the second round of interview.

Those who were keen, we would sign them up for the training and examinations. Those who needed to think about it, we would contact them on an agreed date. And for those who expressed no interest, we would let them go. In fact, there were some who were keen but we chose to reject them because they were not of the right fit.

It was as simple as that. A job that I felt, undermined my creativity and ability to truly perform. I take it as a great learning curve though, another experience that I gained into my rather diversified portfolio.