Hiring Fresh: Building the Old with the New

There is nothing new under God’s sky. Isn’t that what they say? Is it even true? I mean, there’s a new device in the market every other day.

When a company hires people, the team has to consider a lot of things. Does the person have a certain skill set? Can this person work well with the existing teams? How much can this person be trusted? The list goes on and on. But it usually boils down to evaluating their talent.

Talent typically means a combination of skill (read experience) and their potential (read aptitude and attitude).

Among these, skill is almost always preferred even at the cost of high potential. Not because companies are inconsiderate towards students, it’s probably because they want to hire for skill to speed up their growth, and perhaps even avoid or minimize the investment of upskilling staff as much as possible.

Why hire a fresh-out-of-college grad student when you have others with more experience? Is this singular look at skill at the cost of potential the right thing? We do not think so.

We believe that when they do not hire youth fresh out of college, a lot of companies don’t consider that among many other things they’re missing out on a fresh perspective and their connection with the youth.

Experience comes with time, potential, rarely so. When you hire people who have potential but no prior experience, you essentially start shaping that person’s life and career.

They imbibe your company’s culture, ethics, and practices. They become your brand’s youth advocates, ambassadors of the kind of worklife your company has to offer.

That’s not all. Hiring fresh talent also brings you fresh perspective. Some times, insights that you could have missed otherwise.

It made a lot of sense for us to reach out to the fresh talent of our city and hire them. Our process includes visiting a campus or hosting college students at our office. Followed by a 3-round process where all applicants are put through a written, technical and human test.

What do we learn from this process?

1. The Paperwork: We engage with around 200 - 250 student applicants in the first round. Each student writes a quiz, selecting answers that make the most sense to them on paper. Challenging each student in different areas to see how good they are at conveying their talent.

2. The Tech Talk: We’re a 20-year-old software company. Tech is what we live and breathe so it made sense for us to put all the students up against technical challenges in the 2nd round. Hands-on use-cases to understand the skills and ability of a person.

3. Not just a Resource: The best part of our process is when we get to talk to a student, face-to-face, and understand the person better. Our culture at Net Solutions is based on some values that have helped us succeed over the years and it’s very important for us that the person we hire, should respect and care for those values.

Combine the paperwork with the tech talk and not treating humans just like a resource, and voila, you have hired the best fresh talent for your company.