Especially in India, industries bemoan the fact that there are insufficient graduates and, to make matters worse, those they do find expect enormous rewards. Yes, there is also the stark issue that the graduates are not really properly prepared for industry. They’ve learnt what they had to in order to pass exams but not learnt how to apply concepts in real life. They cannot walk into a company and start working on important projects without being “trained in” sufficiently — which takes time.
My question in all this is simply … are we looking for the right people?
Particularly in the Indian context, there are a lot of people who have had minimal education. Are these individuals incapable of being great in engineering if given the opportunity to learn it? Just because their families’ financial circumstances were such that schooling and especially college education remained well out of their reach, does this mean they cannot achieve?
The two cornerstones of high performance are Willingness and Ability. If a person is willing to put in time, effort and focus into growing their ability, they are likely to be eminently trainable and become high performers. It takes time — but with these individuals, it is an investment.
Am I a dreamer?
No.
A few years back, I was working with an Indian manufacturing client who was based way out of a city. They too complained about getting qualified people. I asked them ‘Do you want someone who is determined to learn and grow and willing to put in the effort to succeed, or do you want a highly qualified graduate?’ I then added ‘You are far from a city but, surely, there are local people who would be willing to put effort into learning and working in order to keep their family and educate their children. Could you consider taking them in and giving them a chance to meet their aspirations?’
The CEO answered. ‘We've recently tried this. We took on a local, unqualified man and taught him to do a fairly straightforward job on a simple machine. He learnt that and became very efficient and turned out good work. We then decided to give him something more difficult and taught him the ropes. Again he applied himself and became an expert.
‘During this time, he mentioned he would like to get an engineering qualification, so we paid for him to take a course and he obtained that qualification.
‘His work continued to be excellent and he happily took on more complex duties, but felt he should learn English to be better able to read the instructions and settings on the machines.’
The last I heard was that the company was funding this for him also.
So the question is: instead of fishing for those who are money-minded, “me”-minded, showing no willingness to learn, and expecting the world to be given to them on a platter, why not consider a less well-educated, determined person with a strong work ethic and give them the opportunity to achieve their potential as well as making them better able to support their family and educate their children?
Do you want someone who is dedicated to the company because it is giving them a chance to build something so very positive in their life?
I see this as a strong “win-win” situation that requires recruiters to stop blindly following the academic approach they learnt in order to get their qualifications — this almost total reliance upon skills, knowledge, training, qualifications and experience — and extend it strongly into the much more productive behavioural traits and strengths: temperament, maturity, stability, attitudes and values, and self-motivation, together with speed of thought.
These are the ingredients that help you recruit winners, which has been proven hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
What is stopping you from experimenting in this way?
(And, if you need help in making the change, get in touch — I will be happy to help, train and coach you towards your objective.)
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