Roshee Lamichhane Bhushal

Published On: September 27, 2018 08:30 AM NPT By: Roshee Lamichhane Bhushal

Nurturing management graduates for business enterprises

Nurturing management graduates for business enterprises

Finding the right recruits and attracting the most suitable hires remains one of the daunting tasks and pressing problems that are currently faced by business organizations. Corporate organizations continue to complain about the non-availability of competent candidates with a proper skill set and right attitude in the current talent landscape prevailing in Nepal. Despite the fact that hordes of business graduates do get churned out year after year from the ever mushrooming B-schools in Kathmandu valley, present job market depicts a dismal picture for the recruiters with no respite in sight. This is precisely being stated as the principal reason for the much touted and ever-widening ‘industry-academia gap’.

Way to fix the problem
Making the students aware about the hiring companies through presentations by their representatives and sensitizing them about the market realities through invited talk sessions much before they graduate from their colleges is one effective measure that can, to some extent, provide a remedy the situation. It is generally observed that such personal and direct interactions with the graduating students help them know about the cultures that prevail in the companies in all respects. Gaining the much-needed employer visibility has the twin advantages of creating a favorable impression about the campus recruiters and also in facilitating positive responses among the prospects by making them apply for a job opening in a company of their choice is crucial.

While providing organization-specific information to students -- directly and in person -- they can also get to know about these details by gleaning through company websites, ads in newspapers, job and internship fairs, publicity material, word of mouth, etc. Most of the graduating scholars are generally clueless about the prospective employers till the time they apply for a job in their companies. For job/employment related information, they are totally dependent on their friends or ads -- either offline or online. 

They are further handicapped in this regard as one hardly comes across a B-School that organizes a job fair. This peculiar predicament can be overcome only when companies making sincere efforts to come up with sustainable action plans to get noticed among the prospective graduating students. 

Preparation required at the both ends
First of all, it has to be noted that students would be in a position to know about and develop an impression, favorable or unfavorable, about a company only when it participates in a job fair. Students always get curious about the prospects for challenge and creativity in the jobs they would be called upon to perform and also opportunities for growth and development in a given company. Feedback obtained at job fairs suggests that these very same reasons are cited by students as equally important, if not more, in the initial stages of their career along with pay and perks.

Moreover, the only way a recruiter can hope to create a positive impression among the students is through the individual officers who represent the hiring company and by way of their vibrant presence and active participation in a job fair. It is needless to mention here the importance of the way they conduct themselves during their interactive sessions. Students always get attracted to and enticed by the behavior of the representing executives. It is of utmost importance that they behave in the most professional manner leaving the lasting impression on the potential hires.

There is a tendency on the part of the interviewees to share their entire post-interview experiences with their peers, juniors, and friends. At times, the attitude formation about an organization is an infectious process and is not to be neglected or undermined. Exchanging information about the kind and level of their own preparedness and the kind of questions that were put to them prove critical in influencing and shaping the attitudes of their own and those of the others as well. After all, creating and managing an image and impressions is a two-way process. Both the participating companies and potential hires are sizing up and assessing each other about their suitability and compatibility against several criteria of their own including the cultural fit. Just as students need to get guided and groomed for employment interview settings, companies have to take extra care and caution in sending trained HR and/or line executives. 

It is rather unfortunate to witness job fairs are being often organized in a routine and casual manner. Of late, they are conducted merely for namesake and getting reduced to the status of a routine ritual. A job fair can become successful in strategic terms and create a win-win situation for all the stakeholders in an educational eco-system only when they get fully geared up for the event and take it more seriously and purposefully.

It is also disheartening to note another de-motivating trend on the part of recruiters in Nepal. It is about the practice of offering pre-placement packages that are not commensurate with the caliber of the students graduating in flying colors from top-notch B-schools. This acts as a real motivational dampener for the aspiring Young Turks.

Yet another recruiters’ practice that leaves much to be desired is not announcing the job interview results on or immediately after the completion of the fair. In the absence of final job offers that close the employment deal forthcoming from the recruiters, students are forced to go for further and multiple rounds of interviews.  Many a time, these avoidable delays in declaring the outcomes and keeping the final decisions as closely guarded secrets have resulted in students giving consent to join the next best companies that give a placement assurance. So, in the final analysis, the real reason for students getting ended up in not joining a company of their first preference remains unfathomable for an onlooker. 

In this backdrop, one would exhort upon the hiring companies to take cognizance of this situation by making the final and the possible job offer before the candidate is lured away by a competing recruiter. Axiomatically, there has to be a round peg in a round hole and a square peg in a square hole to ensure human order in organizations. For this, firms should ensure they are equipped with the same and adequate amount of preparedness that they expect from their hires to make job fairs sustainable and resilient in the days to come.

Bhusal is placement in-charge and lecturer at Kathmandu University School of Management.

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