‘When the right people come together at the right time for the right reason, amazing things happen’ - Rishabh Kaul, Co-founder, Belong

Technology and the digital world has transformed not only the way we work, but also the kind of talent you look at. “Digital transformation is the new buzzword,” says Rishabh Kaul, Co-founder, Belong, at YourStory’s Future of Work conference.

Quoting a study by SAP, Rishabh added: “Only 17.3 percent of companies say their employees have the skills needed for digital transformation.” However, he believes digital transformation is a phrase for larger organisations and consultancy companies that want to understand what is happening in smaller innovative tech companies.

In a lot of these companies, the landscapes are changing, skills that are needed are changing. “If you talk to candidates and employers, and ask them who drives recruitment, they both would more or less say that the employer drives it. However, ask any recruiter, and they will tell you recruitment is more candidate driven,” says Rishabh.

Delighting has become a key 

With rapidly evolving landscapes, do companies actually have a future-ready talent strategy? In today’s day and age, delighting people has become a necessity owing to a demand-supply imbalance.

“Is a candidate-employee experience at the heart of your talent strategy? Nobody likes being called a resource,” says Rishabh. From the response rate to the way people are treated have become essential in today’s job hiring.

Ditch the job description 

“We have an app for everything, which uses data. We spend close to 70-80 percent of our life at work, and yet we don’t want to use too much data over there. Today, nobody reads job descriptions - not a lot of thought goes into job descriptions. People do not know what they are looking for,” explains Rishabh.

Most people are looking for their colleague, and that needs to be translated into a job description. Today, the three fastest-growing jobs are in IoT, Data Science and DevOps. Rishabh adds that he studied at BITS Pilani, and there weren’t any courses on those topics.

Hiring at the top is different 

Talent strategy to hire for top positions can't be the same as for other roles, as there is an acute shortage of talent. Rishabh adds that most companies didn’t know what a data scientist does, and thus most data scientists do not last in an organisation for more than two years.

"Today, there will be more and more roles where there will be lesser supply and will be a lot of first-timers. This means companies need to be willing to take more risks," says Rishabh. This also means that resumes need to change. Rishabh says it is a world of showing and not telling.

In conclusion, Rishabh says, "When the right people come together at the right time for the right reason, amazing things happen".

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