Patience and the ability to tailor your style to candidates’ preferences makes a great tech Recruiter says Amit, Manager – HR of Zymr System Pvt Ltd

I had the pleasure of interviewing Amit Patel the Manager – HR of Zymr System Pvt Ltd. He finds great people and great careers for them. This all starts with a conversation. Along the way, they’ll find it together and uncover their values, personal aspirations, and next career move. And If they don’t, well then they keep the conversation going, because he wants to get them there.

He is a data-driven and insightful recruiter and a people person who is passionate about growing teams and dreams. He has built his skills in full-cycle recruiting, strategic sourcing, data analytics, and project management. His passion for recruitment and people management so far has been matching top-performing and rising professionals with the right career move in software engineering, product development, sales, management, UX, Marketing, and more.

Thank you so much for joining us!

Amit: It is my pleasure I am always ready to share my experiences with my community and all new talents who want to build their career in IT recruitment. 

What motivated you to choose technical recruiting as your professional career?

Amit: I deliberately did not choose Technical recruitment as a career option. After completing my MBA in HR from Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom. I got placed by campus placement in IKEA to join their corporate team, and I was so excited to work in the world’s top retail Furniture company. I start with IT fresher hiring in IKEA, and from there, I found my interest in Technical recruitment. I learned many technology words, and due to my learning attitude, I grasped quickly all the IT Industry terms and work. I worked there for 2 and half years, and from there began my journey as a Technical Recruiter. I have more than 10+ years of experience now, and I enjoy what I am doing. (well.. do I really? ;)) 

I love interacting with IT people (Engineers) Because of the solutions they provide for the problem which the real world is facing. On a day-to-day basis, I meet with interesting people and connect with them. I do this so people can start new careers, and companies can take their businesses to the next level. I enjoy recruiting because it helps me be of service to people. It also puts my listening skills to use.

Recruiting has also helped me build an intuition for identifying the best qualities in people and sharpened my decision-making and management skills. While there are some formulaic aspects to recruitment, the most successful people in the industry think outside of the box. I like working with really smart people. It also helps that I am a total geek in my own right, and talking about new technologies is fun!!

What is it that excites you about tech recruiting?

Amit: The competition is exciting as a Technical recruiter. I realized that filling each Tech job is a head-to-head competition that can be energizing. Every day, I compete against recruiters who represent powerhouse firms like Google, Apple, Infosys, Wipro, and IBM. Most recruiters also find that discovering hidden talent is also exhilarating, as is successfully convincing top IT Talents who have multiple choices to pick our job. Corporate recruiting’s globalization further adds to the excitement and the challenge. I am the first face of contact that the applicant has with our organization. As a result, I have the unique opportunity to represent the company and reinforce its image by treating them as if they were your customer. As a “brand ambassador,” I have the responsibility to spreading the word in person and on social media and the Internet about the factors that make our company a great place to work.

The variation of work, learning, sourcing (stalking), and negotiating are all excellent parts of the Technical recruiter job. What I love the most is winning. For me, nothing beats filling a hard (Niche) role ahead of the competition. 

I am getting an opportunity to interact with management. The Technical recruiter has the opportunity on a daily basis to interact with hiring managers and executives at all levels of the organization. As a result, not only will I get to know them personally, but they will see the quality of my work directly. 

If you like to meet and interact with exciting people, recruiting allows you to meet and get to know hundreds of outstanding people and some innovators each month. In many cases, you get to know these individuals in some depth because that is necessary if you fully understand their needs and successfully present them to hiring managers. 

I get to interact with smart and interesting people all day. Whereas other recruiters have to screen accountants, marketing, and other operational roles. I get to chat about the future of mobile gaming, web development, Artificial intelligence, AR/VR, Machine learning, Blockchain, NLP, or whatever other technology I am working on. Engineers are more than happy to explain for the most part, so it makes for some great conversations. The deal is exciting. I like the negotiating and closing part of the process.

What has been your biggest challenge in tech recruitment?

Amit: As we are all aware that covid has changed recruitment so differently. The biggest challenge is remote work opportunities provided by International companies and  Geek Talent demand. There is very less IT Talent in India and in the world too. Due to the demand for Geek Talent supply, it becomes more difficult and talent are asking for expected salary hikes. Which are the biggest challenges ever now.

Lack of quality applications is also the biggest challenge due to demand. Since we have started to the come out to the other side of the Covid19 pandemic, the demand for software engineers is off the charts – this is the hottest the market has ever been. This means poor developers are being hit for six with job applications.  

Candidate’s high expectations – Now Candidates have a high expectations which is not a good survival point for the organization. 

There is also a lot higher attrition in the last few years as candidates are more fickle and willing to leave after a very short amount of time. The challenges in hiring technical jobs are equal to filling any position really. However, there are all kinds of IT now. I recruit for our company that offers infrastructure as a service/cloud computing services. So I hire software engineers or programmers. I hire network and AWS/Azure cloud architects and engineers. A lot of tech folks don’t often understand the specific differences in skills needed for different roles.

I guess my answer to your question is the diversity of our advanced technology can sometimes make it harder to find just the right fit. The other answer is that while I’m often able to find the highly qualified technical talent I can’t find a good personality to go with it. By “good” I mean someone who can follow directions and work well with the rest of the team. Like I always say, you can be the smartest and the most successful person.

What do you think is the future of tech recruitment and what state-of-art problems do you think needs to be solved?

Amit: When it comes to tech recruitment, however, there is expected to be a post-pandemic boom. The tech sector has been more insulated from the impact of COVID-19, as tech talent has played a crucial part in ensuring business continuity with the rapid shift to remote working. It could be said that the pandemic has helped many business leaders understand the actual value of modern technology and the people that power it. It’s expected that future recruitment will focus mainly on tech talent.

71% of business leaders believe that their organization would become more dependent on tech as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. In a way, we already have. For many businesses, having to adapt to remote working quickly forced us to rely on cloud-based technologies, video communication, and remote software in ways we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago. It also looks like we’re going to be more reliant on tech in our daily lives, from doctors’ appointments over video calls to ordering via apps at restaurants, which in turn will increase demand for the tech talent who can make these things possible.

Research claims that 58% of people want to develop digital skills, and some of these people will already work within your organization. This provides an excellent opportunity to upskill your employees rather than employ new ones. It sounds strange to say that the future of tech recruitment lies in your current workforce but providing training for employees who wish to develop tech skills could be cost-effective and have positive implications on your employer brand. It shows you’re investing in your people and their future, helping them develop skills that could be as crucial to their career in the new normal as it is to your organization.

How Recruitment will change by 2024:

Amit: Emphasis on Soft skills along with IT: While talents skilled in cloud computing, Data Analytics, AI, and VR create a strong talent pipeline, the talents with soft skills such as analytical ability, problem-solving mindset, design thinking, adaptability to change, and result-oriented outlook will become the need of the hour for the organizations.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Diversity and Inclusion will shift from a “good to have” notion to a “must-have” outlook. As employees are increasingly becoming cognizant of the factors that build their environment and impact their communities, they will be aligning themselves to the organizations that empower them to bring their whole selves to the workplace.

Greater Focus on Learning and Development (L&D): While, L&D has always been a critical area of focus for organizations. The pandemic has given a new meaning to L&D initiatives at the workplace. The new set of protocols has forced companies to create innovative measures, processes, and strategies, around how employees learn and develop across the industries and sectors. Putting together a comprehensive L&D strategy is the only way our industry can fight the existing skill gap.

Recruiting through internet technologies: We cannot avoid the importance of the Internet when it comes to predicting the future of recruitment.

In the near future, internet technologies will see a massive development, while access to all kinds of resources will significantly increase. This fact can affect the work of recruiters in attracting candidates. Internet recruitment can greatly accelerate and facilitate the business process and will solve help in saving time and increasing the accuracy of the selection procedure.

But, we cannot keep aside the human side of recruitment. Personal communication and candidate experience still remain important. Recruitment, that way has multiple faces. But, the fact remains that we cannot imagine the future of recruiting technology without artificial intelligence and innovations working alongside social networks and recruiting platforms.

Chatbots in Recruitment: People are now used to interacting with chatbots – tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that can have basic conversations with humans. Why should recruiters spend hours and hours trying to parse reumes and finally shortlist one from the thousands that have lined up?

That’s what chatbots in recruitment can do. They can be programmed to analyze key terms in resumes, initiate interactions with candidates, and ask them a set of predefined questions, based on which they can then shortlist candidates, giving recruiters a quality set of candidates to start working with.

If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a tech recruiter who’s about to start their journey in tech recruitment, what would they be?

Amit: Patience and the ability to tailor your style to candidates’ preferences makes a great tech Recruiter.

Keep your eyes open and keep your ears open to listen more and more after that you will automatically become a good technical recruiter.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Amit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitpatelhr/ 

Thanks for joining us Amit! The insights were really eye-opening and thought-provoking. Your understanding of maneuvering through changes in the tech recruitment industry is impeccable.