BackFinancial services firms adopt innovative recruitment procedures
Financial services firms adopt innovative recruitment procedures
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New Delhi: Financial service organizations in India are resorting to innovative methods of recruitment to get much-needed manpower as the shortage in the industry gets more acute. According to a CII survey, 58% of firms from the sector found it difficult recruit people with the right skill set. Companies are now tying up with educators for specific training, setting up their own schools and even tying up with local NGOs.
For instance, ICICI Bank has tied up with Manipal University to offer an industry specific course. The bank manages the front end. It recruits people and sends them to Manipal University for a nine-month course. They are then reabsorbed by ICICI as probationary officers.
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2b455390-8592-11dd-b945-000b5dabf613.flvRaja Parthasarathy, investment head of IDFC Private Equity, which has a stake in Manipal University, says he found the course working to the advantage of both the candidate and the bank. “Simple graduation does not equip you with the right skill set. This course fills the gap," he adds.
Similarly, Yes Bank too has a programme in place for training people for the financial services industry. It has set up its own school and is looking at expanding it to a full time university for training people for other firms as well.
Yes Bank’s Responsible Banking Division country head Rita Soni says the bank has even tied up with a local Mumbai NGO called Akanksha for training people who live in slums. She says the NGO has been told to let them know if they find students with an aptitude for math and English. Yes Bank has already hired a person suggested by the NGO, Soni says.
The financial services sector is also increasingly willing to recruit candidates with online certifications and courses in place of classroom ones to draw more people into the system and enhance their employability. Rakesh Khurana, chairman of Knowledge Network India says that his company has trained 600,000 people online in the past two years. Before that he would do about 10 a month. “This translates into millions of man hours for training and then some more for assessment," he says.
According to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, there will be a need for another 4.5 million to 5 million people in the financial services sector by 2015. Of this, 15% people will require minimal education for recruitment as collection and field agents, and 65% will be needed for functions like customer service and insurance.
Since such jobs do not require high levels of education but depend on employees’ social skills and the training given to them, the new approach, which has proven effective for many recruiters, could become a trend for others to follow.
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